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utterlyazriel · 2 days

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whom the shadows sing for — (and the thief's echoing hymn)

a/n: annnd we've made it to velaris ! yippee !! now it's time for all the introductions >:D i hope you enjoy pls let me know what you think angels <3 ok mwah bye

word count: 3.5k

synopsis: You wake up somewhere entirely new, a long, long way from your home.

CHAPTER EIGHT :: STRANGERS (AGAIN)

The air all around you is sickly sweet.

Maybe... sweet is the wrong word. The air is clean; perfumed with an allure of scents you've never smelt before, heady and swirling, sweet and sterile all in one.

But more importantly, it is utterly foreign.

You're in unknown territory. Age old instinct has you shifting the moment you wake, surging up in a rush before your memory can catch up and remind you why that's an terribly bad idea.

The sheets rustle as you push yourself up into a sitting position, a heavy dose of panic already poisoning your system. It doesn't take long for the pain to follow.

You falter in your movement as an aching agony ricochets through your body, forcing out a wince. Your eyes screw up in pain. Your entire body feels like a bruise, punishing you with every movement.

You allow yourself only a moment of pause before you force them back open to take on the new threat, every sense filtering in unknown information as they sluggishly come to life. You have to blink rapidly to clear your vision, light coming in from all angles.

Why does it feel as though you've been asleep for years?

Where are you?

A room. You're not outside which is where you memory places you last. The extent of the memory drifts back as you search the room, your eyes climbing the walls, ravenous for details. They're made of some kind of warm coloured stone that covers the whole ceiling, you realise, as you follow the line of it up.

You screw your eyes up again and blink hard when you open them again. Every sense keeps pinging for your attention, a thousand things unfamiliar. The bed beneath is too soft, the sound of the wind outside isn't a whistle, the clothes on your back...

You startle, stumbling off the bed you've awoken on as you peer down at yourself, eyes moving about wildly. You're wearing... something completely new.

Frowning down at your arm, you raise one of your hands and pinch at the new fabric that covers the expanse of your arms. It's soft. So soft.

You tentatively smooth your hands down the tunic you're clothed in, all the way down to your pants. Each thing is finely made, with details far smaller that you would ever consider, and soft. Warm but sturdy.

What the fuck? Your chest starts to heave as panic truly sets in, your breath just out of reach before you can catch it. You gasp, grasping at your chest tightly, the new clothes scrunching up beneath your fingers. Memories begin to trickle back in as your mind scours for any information about how you ended up here.

You had been... cold. It was raining.

And your wings had been—your wings—your brain trips over the thoughts as every detail bleeds back in, sudden and frightening.

Stakes driven through the flesh of them, your wings pulled taut, stretched out for lashings and prepped for removal. Your terror climbs, its cloying grip tightening around your sternum like a fist.

Eyes screwed closed, you pray to every deity you can imagine, begging the Mother for this one thing.

You twitch the familiar muscle and feel the weight of your wings as they respond. There's no describing the relief that bursts within you, overwhelming your panic in an instant, your knees nearly buckling beneath you. They're still moving, still stretching out as you command them, still yours.

You stand there and peer over your shoulder, stretching your wings out as far as you can—cringing when they stop before full extension, buckling and bunching up at the violent spike of pain that ripples through them. It echoes through your body, making you hunch forward and grit your teeth. Your left eardrum wails extra loud.

What had happened? What had changed?

You could recall the finality of being down on your knees in the pouring rain, your hands are bound as your fate. Endless agony. The secret you couldn't keep, despite all you had tried.

You had been resigned to it—to dying there amongst in the dirt from where you had come from.

So, what changed?

Behind you, there's an abrupt noise from behind a door in the room, a rustling that makes your head snap around to face it.

Someone’s coming.

You stumble back a couple steps, dread mounting in your chest and your panic returns in full-force. You don't know where you are, you don't know how you got here, you don't know who is coming through that door.

You know that you have a lot more foes than you do friends.

Eyes darting around the room frantically, you spot a balcony down a small hallway and don't waste a single second.

As you begin to stride, you realise faintly that you're without shoes, feet bare on the cool marble floor. It turns to carpet beneath you as your fast strides transforms to a run, hearing the door open somewhere behind you.

It feels like a trap. Not the nice clothes or the fancy room would be enough to fool you. You're caught in a sickly sweet trap of honey and the net is being reined in, the ropes closing up on every side of you. It feels like you're being chased.

Heart in your throat and pulse rabbiting wildly, you burst through the doors of the balcony, daring a glance behind you without thought—

—and you nearly plunge off the edge of a mountain.

The gasp that escapes your throat is entirely involuntary, your fingers gripping the edge of the stone railing the adorns the balcony.

Your balance tips momentarily, the momentum of your dash nearly pulling you over. Terror freezes you. You're fairly certain with the state of your wings, it would be a short flight and an almost guaranteed casualty.

But a wind blows gently against your face, as though helping push you back to safety.

When you're sure you're not going to topple over the edge, some of your crippling panic eases. Your breathes, short and fast, begin to slow.

Your eyes travel up from the daunting height of the mountain side and widen, all the air in your lungs stolen in pure surprise.

Because before you, stretching out across the land that meets the sea, is something you've never seen before.

It's... a city.

A city that sits amongst the rolling, steep hills of the terrain and curls around a meandering river that leads out to the ocean. Tall, jagged mountains surround it from all sides, their hills steep up the top until they give way to gentler slopes, eventually becoming paved roads and streets for magnificent buildings.

The structures gleam, even from afar, made with precision and beauty in mind. Some are white marble or warm sandstone, others the same red stone of the mountains beside the one you're standing on. Small, quaint houses with green copper roofs, their white chimneys smoking softly.

Your breath stutters out in an exhale and you don't dare blink.

A city—a sprawling, wondrous city that was bursting with people, with colour, with life. So utterly unlike the chilled gray-scale of the Illyrian Mountains.

In fact, you wonder briefly if this was even the Night Court at all. This— this incredible sight felt like something you'd imagined of Summer or Spring, imbued with warmth, a place where things could grow and thrive.

The Night Court was... foul. It was the biting frigid cold of the wintry mountains or the shudder-inducing darkness of the court that lay beneath the mountain. This... where is this?

As though you've spoken your thoughts aloud, a voice answers from behind you.

"Velaris."

You start, whipping around fast enough to reawaken all your wounds, forcing you to stifle a pained noise that leaps up your throat. Your heart thunders as your eyes lay upon an unfamiliar figure, stepping out from the empty hallway—a form cut from the very night itself.

Your hands grip the stone railing behind you and you're unsure whether it's to keep your knees from buckling in fear or from bolting off the edge, into uncertain skies.

He's unfamiliar to you, yes, but you have a feeling you know exactly who he is.

"You asked where this—" The male waves a casual hand to the city beyond the balcony before pocketing it, either unaware of your panic or uncaring. "—is. You're in Velaris."

He surveys you, his violet eyes glancing down at the strained way you clutch at the railing.

"I know you must have a thousand questions. We haven't been introduced. My name is Rhysand and I am—"

"I know who you are." You interrupt. There's a lilt of fear in your voice but you couldn't keep it out even if you tried. He's the fucking Highlord of the Night Court.

Which means—Azriel.

His name slams into you like a shooting star, glowing hotly and dripping through your ribcage with a fire warmer than you've ever known.

Azriel must be— he was the one- he's the reason you're still alive. It feels like you relive the relief of his appearance during the storm all over again, remembering that he came back for you.

You have no idea the cacophony of emotion you're giving off, shouting all your unguarded thoughts across the balcony.

Rhysand's cool expression doesn't falter at your disruption. He looks at ease, both hands in his pockets, like he's merely having a conversation with a friend.

"Then it's important for you to know," He continues. "that I mean you no harm."

Lying, lying, liar, LIAR—the thought festers from within you instinctively, only growing in its urgency. You and everyone else where you come from are well aware of the origins of your Highlord.

And while he's your ruler, he's first and foremost, an Illyrian male.

"Only half," Rhysand corrects.

You startle, sickly surprise at the fact he seems to be able to read your very thoughts.

Then he confirms it, by saying, "And I can."

"You can read my thoughts?" You echo, voice sounding so much meeker than you intend. You sound like a child—and you feel like one, feel like the same eight-year-old staring down at the scorched brown earth in Exordor. Old blood. The same dirt you had been forced to kneel upon that now makes you shudder at the fresh memory.

Rhysand's expression falters momentarily at your train of thought, a flash of hurt on his handsome face.

His eyebrows draw together, forming a sympathetic, troubled look. "I can teach you how to shield them, if you so wish."

You don't make a noise. You don't even dare to take a breath, your fingers still crushed around the railing.

Within you, some part of you knows what he's offering. What the very nature of his words implies. He voices it anyway.

"You're no prisoner here. You're free to—”

"Where's Azriel?" The question falls from your lips before you can even think to stop it. Fear hammers through your chest—Fae that make a habit of interrupting Highlord's often find their lives cut short.

But Rhysand gives no impression that he minds. All he does is step to the side, revealing the empty hallway out to the balcony.

Except it's not empty anymore.

There, standing back to hide in the shadows as he did best, is your Shadowsinger.

Reserved and holding back, clearly waiting for you to remember him, to make your call before he made himself known. Making sure you wanted to see him at all.

Azriel, all 6ft something of shadow and muscle, with his wings tucked politely behind him, takes one step out on to the balcony and towards you.

His hands stay at his sides and his hazel eyes watch you with a familiar intensity. Something deep within you unfurls at the sight of him.

It feels like the collision of a thousand stars rain down on you, their jagged, burning fragments pelting into your body.

It's as though the world had been falling out from underneath and then, seeing him before you—when Cauldron knows how long ago you had been resolutely convinced you were never ever going to see him again— suddenly your feet were grounded and the world was still.

You breathe out his name. Azriel sways forward, almost imperceptibly, as though the sound of his name on your lips was a siren call he was helpless to fight.

You don't know that you say it sweeter than he's ever heard it in all his centuries.

Like following an invisible tug, you don't even realise when you start moving, only that you're rushing towards him with an urgency you can't begin to comprehend. It's like he's calling to you and you can't bear to be this close to him and not press in closer.

His beautiful face, usually guarded, reveals a glimpse into his storm of emotions. Concern, care, and something that looks suspiciously like... longing.

Your brain catches up and your feet falter, bringing you to a stand still before him, chest heaving.

Reason starts to catch up to you, asking meanly about what exactly you meant to do, running up to him—you weren't raised with physical touch beyond violence. You and Azriel had barely touched beyond sparring and those quiet nights in your shelter, skin brushing as you passed something to the other.

In the end, it's not you that moves, it's Azriel.

He closes the distance between you with one single step and his strong arms sweep around your middle, pulling you into the tightest hug. Night-chilled mist and cedar swirl your senses.

Helpless to do anything else, with no desire to do anything but this, you melt.

Your weight slumps into Azriel and he takes it without question, your arms curling around his neck to hold him back just as tightly. The light around you shifts, his shadows frenzied as they kiss along your neck and arms, all checking for hurt they can ease. Your heart is torn between soaring and stopping altogether.

The world fades away as his head ducks down, pressing his face the crook of your neck. It's more touch than you've ever known. More safety, more kindness than you've ever dreamed of. You and Azriel seem to exist only in a cocoon of shadow and warmth, in each others arms.

"You're alright," Azriel murmurs, his breath against your neck. It sounds more like he's reassuring himself than telling you. He sounds devastatingly sincere when he says, "I'm so fucking glad you're alright."

"Thanks to you," You whisper back, not wanting to break the silence. "You—"

The words get caught in your throat and you know you need to see his face when you say this. Pulling back from the embrace, you clear your throat as Azriel straightens up. You miss the heat of his body almost instantly.

"I-I thought I was never going to see you again."

It looks as though your words pain Azriel, a flash of pain and shame crossing his expression. His voice, low and gravelly, holds a guilty tone you've never heard him use before.

"I never should have left."

You blink. That wasn't what you had expected him to say in the least. It was you who had lied, who had deceived him from the very beginning. He was— he had— this was what you got for letting anyone get close to you, you understood that.

You shake your head, pointedly ignoring how it makes your injuries throb. "I know why you did, Azriel. I can't imagine—"

Azriel's scarred hands clench into fists at his sides, anguish colouring his face.

"No." He shakes his head, his jaw clenched tightly. "You did nothing wrong. Nothing."

"Then why did you leave?" Your questions comes out with an edge this time, a biting fury as your emotions process what he's saying.

He says you did nothing wrong. He says he shouldn't have left you behind. It's a ugly mixture of hurt and anger that paints your insides as realisations churn to the surface.

Azriel steals a glance to the side, serving as a quick reminder that there was, indeed, someone else still out on the balcony with you. You glimpse at the Highlord as your anger begins to bubble but you can't bring yourself to care.

You had... trusted him— you had let him in, let him get closer to you than anyone ever had, and he had left. He left, he left, he left. He did exactly as you had feared and he was wrong for it.

The greatest secret of your life, exposed like a raw nerve, and he hadn't said a word as he deserted you.

Your heart warbles at the betrayal and you can't help but step back, putting distance between the two of you. It's such a far cry from the nearness of a moment ago.

And even though you know he wasn't responsible for the events that followed, in the haze of your upset, it's awfully easy to add it to his betrayal. As if in response, your wings flinch and shudder as a wave of agony passes through them. You wince, gritting your teeth and turning your gaze to the ground.

"I can leave to give you both some privacy," Rhysand cuts into the conversation, evidently answering Azriel's pointed glance in his direction. "However, I don't think it will be overtly helpful. She's shouting every thought so loudly, I think I'll be able to hear it from the other side of the house."

She. It's been so many years since anyone has used that in reference to you that it nearly winds you, your entire body giving a visible flinch.

It feels foreign. You can't quite tell how you feel about it; whether it's some lost part of yourself to reclaim or whether it's something you've outgrown altogether.

You don't get time to consider it further as, bustling as she walks, a fourth Fae steps out onto the balcony. She's an older female in appearance but certainly not in her sprightliness. Her eyes land on you and they lighten up, as though you're the one she's been searching for.

"You are supposed to be resting." She tsks, without much further explanation. Your heart sinks, already feeling as though you're in trouble. Rhysand, reading your abrupt switch from anger, jumps in to explain.

"Madja, here-" He gestures to the female with a polite smile- "is our resident healer. She's been taking care of you over these last couple days, helping to heal your wings."

A severe reminder of the sorry state that had been in not too long ago. Glancing over your shoulder, your eyes glaze over as they take in the dozens of scattered markings that litter your wings. Irreversible. Your glorious love, changed forever.

There's patches over the ends that you hadn't noticed before, covering where you know the stakes had been. You suddenly feel an immense rush of gratitude towards the stranger before you.

"Thank you," You say, your throat thick. You want to say it again, want to repeat it over and over til your lungs bleed because just once doesn't seem enough.

But Madja nods in a grave way, as though she knows your internal turmoil.

"You weren't supposed to be up and moving quite so soon," She says, this time with less disapproval in her voice.

She directs a more withering look towards Rhysand and Azriel, enough to surprise you. Perhaps, healers held a higher rank within the city than they did in the mountains? The whole scene looks like a mother scolding her naughty children, especially with how both males shrink beneath her glare.

"Anyhow, come now," She turns back to you and gives a gentle wave of her weathered hand, ushering you back inside. "You'll need at least a days rest before you should be back on your feet."

You amble in her direction, too fearful to glance back at the Highlord and too conflicted to turn back to Azriel. You had broken his trust with you deceit but... he had broken your trust back.

He had abandoned you when you needed him most. But he had also turned up during your darkest hour and saved your life.

You weren't sure what you wanted to do more; hug him once more or throw a shoe at his head. Probably both would make you feel better.

From behind you, you swear you hear a faint chuckle of amusement.

—

When it's just the two of them on the balcony, Rhys turns to Azriel, ignoring his brother's unsubtle sullen demeanor.

"So," He grins. "Mates, then?"

Azriel casts a glance across the balcony, still rigid and unmoving from his spot. His shadows perk up at the word but Azriel gives no reaction beyond a twitch in his jaw muscle. Debating whether to respond at all.

Finally, he mutters, "How could you tell?"

Rhys tilts his head back, chuckling quietly, his mind cast back to an old, fond memory. His violet eyes slice back to his Azriel and he gives a little shrug. "A hunch, really. I think I might have enough to start a theory actually."

He wanders over and nudges Azriel with his shoulder, breaking him from his frozen spot and nodding for them to both head indoors. Rather reluctantly, the Shadowsinger falls into step. Side by side, Rhys gives him only a moment of quiet to stew in before he pipes up once more.

"Say— how much do you remember Cassian and Nesta's first meeting? Any flying projectiles?"

tags below!

@strangerstilinski @janebirkln @itsswritten @mischiefmanagers @hnyclover

@waytoomanyteenagefeels @idkitsem @illyrianbitch @jeweline16 @fightmedraco

@iamjimintrash @maendering @spideytingley @aneekapaneeka @cassianswh0reeee

@viciane @astarlitsoul @mybestfriendmademe @archiveofcravings @reputaytionn-13

@bionic-donut @chessebookgirl @itseightbeats @littleblackcatinwonderland @twsssmlmaa

@fanworrior @skysayhi @vintageoldfashion @tequilya @fabulouslyflamboyant5

@rhysandorian @laughterafter @brieftriumphnightmare @hirah-yummar @some-person-somewhere

@scooobies @sfhsgrad-blog @cherry-cin @bookloverandalsocats @megscabinetofcurios

@doodlebugsblog @landofpetrichor @acourtofdreamsandshadows @florabelll @tanyaherondale

@aomi-recs @letmejustreadthanks @problemfinder @sevikas-whore @doodlebugg16-blog

@meandmysillywriting @justingnoreme @krowiathemythologynerd @hanatsuki-hime @sunny747

@coffeebeforewater @kalulakunundrum @marina468 @moonbirde @yellow-birdy @sheblogs

@shinyghosteclipse @randombibitch @itsjustwinter @emryb @books-all-the-way13

#i'm so excited for her to meet everyone yall...#this fic is my sandbox now #they've got HISTORY they've got MUTUAL PINING #god hows it all gonna go down -> doesnt actually know yet lol #azriel #azriel fanfic #azriel x reader #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel fanfiction #azriel x you #azriel shadowsinger x reader #acotar fanfiction #azriel series #rhysand #whom the shadows sing for (and the thief’s echoing hymn)#whom the shadows sing for #wtssf #sloane writes

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deadsetobsessions · 17 hours

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Alley Drunk!Danny pt.5

If Danny hadn’t thought about quitting and going to rehab before, he’s definitely going to do it now.

It had been one of those days. Danny had sluggishly managed to usher Jason to school- pulling himself together for their walk to the building, because he wasn’t stupid and this was still Gotham- before going home and relapsing. He knew, going into the first bottle, that he was going to regret it. But he still hadn’t felt the buzz, so he went out to get more.

“Just one. I can stop after, if I want to.”

Spoiler: he could not, actually, stop if he wanted to. Because he didn’t want to, which was the whole problem.

So, one bottle became two, two became three, three became six, and by the time the sun slipped below the horizon, Danny had a pile of bottles scattered around the couch and an intense look of self hatred set upon his brow. He was buzzed, but his stupid ghost biology refused to absorb anymore alcohol.

“Stop brooding, Danny. It’ll hurt your brain.” Jazz said, a hint of worry around her joking insult. “You’re forgetting something important.”

“Wha-?” He mumbled out back at the haze of her-hah- ghost.

The door clicked open. Danny whipped his head to wards the door, snarl on his face and ready to lunge at the intruder, when he came face to face with a scuffed up Jason.

They froze simultaneously, but before Danny could do anything, Jason’s hands tightened on the door knob. The kid’s eyes darted to the floor, where the bottles laid, and back up at Danny’s face. What he found there must not have been good, because he took a step back.

It was fear.

Danny felt his heart drop and his throat go dry. The self hatred doubled in size and weight, but he smacked it down in favor of scrambling for the words- anything- to fix the damage his stupidity and addiction caused.

“Jason.” He said, voice raspy. Had he been screaming again? Good start, good- nope. Never mind, Jason is using the door to shield himself now. Danny glanced outside and-

“Oh. I- I didn’t realize it had gotten so late.” He turned back to Jason, who eyed him warily. “I- I forgot to pick you, didn’t I.”

“…I can walk back by myself.” The hesitant but full of bravado reply made Danny’s ghostly obsession to protect rear its head.

“Still. I’m… I’m sorry, Jason.”

Jason evaluated him, noticeably eyeing his open hands and purposefully lax posture, before stepping inside. He doesn’t close the door behind him- clearly leaving it as an option just in case he needed to bolt. Danny stood up slowly. Jason watched him, and his hands. His smaller hands- Ancients, Danny was scaring a kid- curled up into fists.

“What… how did you get hurt?”

“Got mugged.”

“Are you okay? No- wait,” Danny flooded his liver and blood stream with ectoplasm, and his head instantly cleared. Ah, the agony of being coherent.

Danny subtly shook his head to clear his thoughts. Focus.

“Of course you’re not.” Danny stepped away from the incriminating bottles, slowing to a stop once more as Jason shifted backwards like he was either going to spring at Danny or bolt out the door. “Why don’t we get you patched up? And you can tell me about your day. That I missed, when I forgot to pick you up and that I’m really really sorry for.”

Danny held his breath as Jason considered it. “Are ya drunk?” Jason asked, tilting his shoulder to slide his Wonder Woman backpack down, hand clutching at the opposite strap. A good bludgeoning weapon, even if Danny would rather be electro shocked to death again before he ever hurt Jason.

“No.”

Jason raised an eyebrow, scoffing as he looked down again. Danny recognized the motion, a bolt of heavy nostalgia slamming into his chest as he remembered another red-head doing the same thing when he tried to bullshit his way out of something.

“I was buzzed but… I’m a meta. Alcohol doesn’t exactly affect me. I had to drink a lot to even get buzzed, and it’s gone now.”

“Y’er a meta?” Jason straightened, not completely losing the vigilance, but less tense.

“Yes. I’m completely sober right now, I promise.”

Jason stared at him, inhaled, and relaxed. “You better be.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Whatever.”

——

Danny placed the bandages over Jason’s cuts.

“I am so, so sorry I didn’t pick you up.”

Jason shoved at his shoulder, grumbling “I c’n do it myself.”

“I know. You don’t have to, though.”

The kid looked away for a moment before softly admitting, “I was… worried. Cuz, I thought somethin’ happened.”

Danny swallowed the lump in his throat. Jason slipped more into his alley accent the more upset he got these days, having learned some of the local accents at his new school and regularly swapping those out instead of sticking with his alley accent.

“Thank you. For worrying about me. I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

Point. From the mouth of babes came the painful truth, right?

“No. I’m not. But I will be. I’ll go to rehab, Jason. I don’t want to forget picking you up again.”

“Whatever.” Danny hid a smile as Jason ducked his head, looking endearingly like a grumpy duckling. Like, Jazz, when their parents made those blueberry ectoplasm pancakes she liked but thought they’d forgotten that she liked.

“And thank you, Jason, for coming back alive. I- I should have been there, but I’m so glad that you’re okay.”

“I want waffles and ice cream for dinner.”

“Yeah, we can do that.”

“Wow, you musta felt real bad if you’re letting me eat that for dinner.”

Danny grinned down at the head of black hair (with their red roots once more poking out) and ruffled Jason’s head. “I let you eat like five chili dogs in one go. This should not be surprising. But I’ll let you skip the veggies today too.”

“… No, I want the veggies too.”

Danny let out a bark of bright laughter.

Yeah, there’s no way he’s ever risking Jason looking at him like that again. The kid looked like he thought Danny would come swinging at him, despite their previous meetings where he had, perhaps and with plausible deniability, swung for Jason, but never against him.

That night, after he tucked Jason into bed, Danny signed up for rehab. As a matter of fact, Jazz’s words coming into mind, Danny also signed up for therapy. For him and Jason. Yeah.

——

Off camera, they talked about why Jason react to bottles and hands the way he does, and why he’s so scared whenever Danny slips back into his addiction. I’m just rlly too tired to write it.

——

Danny, who thought his addiction wasn’t that serious and that he could stop anytime because he stopped for Jason: I’m cured!

Also Danny: drinks as soon as Jason goes to school

Danny was one hundred percent using Jason as a crutch and when he felt like Jason was safe, he slipped back to his habits. The only reason Danny’s not dead- well, deader than he normally would be- is because ghost biology makes it so that alcohol is cycled through quicker. Like the Flash, but less fast? Anyways, he had enough to make him lose track of time and forget important things (Jason) and that’s what addiction can do to you, amongst other things.

Jason might seem calm but that’s actually a combo of his go to trauma response (fight) and his experience of 1) being on the streets and 2) living with a previous drunkard coming into play. Also, you might be like what kind of kid wants to eat veggies? And to that I answer: KIDS THAT NEVER HAD ENOUGH TO EAT. I would have killed for a veggie stir fry with a lot of chicken back as a kid lol

On a lighter note, the whole time they’re having this interaction, I kind of imagined it as two chickens just kind of dancing around each other.

#Danny Phantom #dcxdp #dpxdc #Jason Todd #alley drunk! danny au #Danny making one (1) good decision #danny: hmm perhaps Jazz had a point #also Danny: I don’t need therapy but Jason might #get therapy if you can y’all #tw: alcholism #tw: implied abuse #but like in Jason’s past #Jazz Fenton #Jazz Fenton ironically haunting Danny from her grave

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formula-nyoom · 9 hours

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Grid Kids

Summary: Charles' "adoption" of Oscar leaves you and Logan wanting your own grid dads that are currently on the grid.

A/N: I speed ran this one so it may seem a bit rushed. Also “niño” is meant to be gender neutral, you're just supposed to default to the masculine form.

While the term “grid kid” is usually used for the kids brought in to stand with the drivers during the national anthem, it has become a term used throughout the paddock for the younger drivers who have seemingly been “adopted” by older, usually retired, drivers. It’s just something the fans like to joke about, not expecting the drivers to acknowledge the term or relationships.

Except the drivers were 100% aware of it.

And Oscar asking Charles to be adopted sparked something amongst two of his fellow drivers.

“You’re collecting grid dads like Logan. First Webber, and now Charles. And Charles comes with two other siblings. You’ve got a whole grid family.” You said to the papaya clad driver as you, him, and Logan walked through the Monaco paddock.

“What are you on about?” Logan asked. “I’m not collecting grid dads and Oscar’s only doing it to get more home races which is kinda ridiculous.”

“You guys are just jealous that Charles said yes.” Oscar said. “You two both have two grid dads. Why are you bothered that I have two now as well?”

“Because we race against Charles almost every weekend. Which means you get to see your grid dad every race weekend. Logan’s able to see Jenson every race weekend because he commentates, but Nico doesn’t come to every race. And I only get to see Seb once a season and that already happened in Imola.”

“What about Räikkönen? Hasn’t he gone to a couple of your races?” Logan asked.

“That was only in F3 when he was still racing for Sauber. He hasn’t been back since.” You said, pouting.

“In my defense, I didn’t think Charles would actually offer to adopt me. But hey, I’ll gladly accept it if it means I get another home race.” Oscar said.

“If Logan and I manage to get a driver to adopt both of us, we’ll still have more home races than you.” You said.

“I’d like to see you guys try.” Oscar said. Logan turned to you.

“Maybe we can ask Charles to adopt us?” Logan said.

“No, he’s my grid dad. Go find your own current driver to adopt you.” Oscar said before starting to walk away.

“Where are you going?” You asked as the Aussie was walking away.

“To go meet my new little brother Leo!” Oscar said. “I’ll send you guys lots of pictures.”

You huffed in frustration as you and Logan watched Oscar walk away.

“If Lewis adopted me, do you think I’d be able to consider Rosco my brother?” You asked Logan.

“It’s possible. Speaking of grid dads, you want to go photobomb Jenson while he’s doing interviews for SkySports?”

“Oh absolutely.”

~~~

It seemed the media thought Charles’s recent adoption of Oscar was humorous enough to be brought up during the driver’s press conference. One interview had asked Charles about it as he sat on the couch with Logan, Alex, George, and Zhou.

“I think I’m the only driver to have adopted another driver while on the grid.” Charles said.

“I don’t think that’s true.” George said. The interviewer and Charles turned to him.

“Why do you think that George?”

“Well me and Alex have practically adopted Logan. I’d say he’s actually been my grid kid since I started mentoring him in F3.” George said. Logan sat up a bit straighter and peaked his head out from Alex, who was sandwiched between the Brit and the American.

“Would you actually adopt me if I asked? So I can one up Oscar?” Logan asked George. A cheeky grin appeared on George’s face

“Absolutely! Scratch what I said about practically-Logan is now mine and Alex’s adopted son.” George said, earning a laugh from the various reporters and a smile from Logan.

“Shouldn’t I get a say on whether we agree to adopt my teammate?” Alex asked as he looked between George and Logan. George patted Alex’s shoulder.

“I know you would say yes either way.” George said. Alex reluctantly nodded his head.

“Yea you’re right.”

“I fear what I may have started.” Charles said, earning more laughs from around the room.

~~~

“How come you get to have two grid dads from the current grid?” Oscar asked Logan as the three of you stood around the paddock before Free Practice.

“Cuz I’m just better.” Logan said. You lightly punched his shoulder while Oscar rolled his eyes.

“This is so unfair.” You said.

“Why don’t you just go ask Max to adopt you so you don’t feel left out.” Oscar said.

“Are you kidding? I’m still intimidated by him.” You said. “I’d rather ask someone who’s approachable.”

While the three of you were talking, your eyes landed on Fernando, who was walking back to the Aston Martin garage and an idea popped into your head.

“Hey Fernando!” You called to the Aston Martin driver and jogged over to him.

“Hey (Y/N). What can I do for you?”

“Um, I don’t know if you heard about Charles adopting Oscar…” Fernando let out a chuckle.

“I did. I also heard about Sargent apparently getting adopted by Russel and Albon.”

“Yea. Me and Logan got kinda jealous of Oscar since his grid dads are always at the races so we may have been going around seeing if we could get adopted as well…” You told the older driver. “This isn’t meant to be taken seriously but…would you adopt me? As your grid kid? Oscar and Logan already have grid dads and I’m feeling left out”

Fernando smiled and patted your shoulder.

“Of course niño. I missed out on the opportunity to mentor a younger driver like Webber and Vettel, so I’ll happily consider you my grid kid.” Fernando said. You smiled.

“Yes! Thanks dad!” You said before jogging back over to Logan and Oscar.

“See, that wasn’t so hard.” Oscar said.

“I think I win in terms of grid dads.” You told them.

“It wasn’t a competition.” Logan said.

“But if it was, I think I would win by having three former world champions as my “adoptive” fathers.” You said. Logan and Oscar rolled their eyes.

The little “adoption” scheme had soon spiraled to the point where even the official Formula One broadcast was getting in on the joke. To you and Logan, it seemed like a miracle that you and him managed to join Oscar at the top 3 of Free Practice 3. What made the moment even better was the graphic that was displayed during the broadcast that sent various social media platforms into chaos.

Oscar Piastri-Leclerc

(Y/N) (L/N)-Alonso

Logan Sargent-Russel-Albon

#formula 1 x reader #f1 x reader #platonic grid x reader #logan sargent x reader #oscar piastri x reader #fernando alonso x reader

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letsnotperceive · 22 hours

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Simon Riley and Intimacy

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶ ༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

18+/MDNI ✧.* GNReader ✧.* (2,040wc)

“This has left him with the ultimate juxtaposition; the innate desire to not allow close proximity to the remaining soft, vulnerable parts of his soul, and yet the desire to claw his fingers into those he cares about to shield them from the very heat that’s ruined him.”

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶ ༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

Simon Riley would have never considered himself a caring person, would never bother to bat an eye at someone else’s dilemmas in most scenarios. His mind is a worn and withered place in which he has created an apathetic mask over his thoughts. One that mirrors the very bit of fabric that covers the marred surface of his face—haphazardly stitched, rough around the edges. If you tried to take it apart and understand its inner workings, it would unravel in your hands in a way that would leave you wondering how it was staying together in the first place.

This is, seemingly, a coping mechanism developed over years of being hardened by the lengths to which he's been dragged through hell and back. The flames have hardened his exterior and charred his heart in a way that's somehow left it both cauterized yet raw. Sifting through all the soot will display that something is still pounding against his ribcage, still defining that he’s not completely a ghost.

��

This has left him with the ultimate juxtaposition; the innate desire to not allow close proximity to the remaining soft, vulnerable parts of his soul, and yet the desire to claw his fingers into those he cares about to shield them from the very heat that’s ruined him.

He's not a saccharine lover, not able to produce a syrupy, sweet display of flowery love language. But you have managed to turn him into a man whose shell has been slowly eroded over time while he has come to concede that not everyone needs to be held at arm's length. There are things worth stowing in his heart despite the vulnerability of letting something reside in such a resting place. But it’s like constantly having a hovering finger over the trigger of a firearm; one wrong move can shatter you. In a way, he doesn't trust himself to keep you whole in the palm of his hand.

Not that there is a sadistic streak that would ever flare in his brain around you; oh no, rather, he'd assume any pain in the universe if it meant you didn't have to harbor it. Even when things have been accumulating, weighing on his broad shoulders that are used to bearing guns and injured teammates and the burdens of a world that has beaten him down with a cruelty that would make the devil wince, he would carry your burdens too. You fuel that singed heart in his chest that would otherwise want to tenaciously depend on spite and adrenaline.

Perhaps that's the reason Simon keeps you so carefully concealed from the life he lives when the mask is pulled over his face. From the person that he becomes when his identity is stripped and replaced with Ghost. Of course, there would be no conceivable way for him to never indulge you in a sparing sample of the nature of his career when it houses so much of his attention and livelihood. But he prefers to keep as much as he can from tainting you. From turning your mind into the same somber chamber that his has become to house what he’s witnessed, what he’s done.

The feeling of relief as he steps over the threshold of the building that houses you is like a breath of air after being submerged underwater for far too long. He doesn’t care where he could end up; no place satisfies his desire for home like wherever it is that you happen to be. There’s a pair of fluffy house slippers near the door; he kicks his boots off beside them. An odd little pair of soft and welcoming ones next to his own, tired and worn. The mask is long gone by now, discarded before he even reached the driveway—here he’s never anyone but Simon to you.

It’s late, far too late; he doesn’t even bother taking the time to check the clock. He knows you are going to be awake regardless, up waiting to catch a glimpse of him, and he will give you your scolding for it in the morning. For now, he makes his way down the hall, hand wrapping around the doorknob to a bedroom that lately houses two. A split second of hesitation runs over him, just enough for that sinking sensation to crawl back up through his mind. That feeling that maybe he shouldn’t, that he should go sink into the couch and keep his filthy, wretched hands that just spent so many lives away from you.

His presence and uncertainty must both be palpable to you, even from behind the door, because he hears a soft call of his name. No, you need him; you need him just as much as he needs you. The weight of the past few weeks can reside with Ghost for now, so he can just be Simon. He turns the knob and opens the door with an echoing creak, swearing under his breath and making a mental note of his new project for the morning involving a bottle of WD-40. Damned this house seems to be, even with an angel waiting just a few steps away.

You can barely hear his footsteps across the hardwood, but the bed frame creaks and the mattress dips under his weight. He manages to settle down between the valley of your legs, his large hands pawing at the plush of your thighs to make room for his frame. You scoff lightly at the way he's grumbling due to the sheer inconvenience it causes him when wasting those precious milliseconds getting into a proper position—though there’s no real heat or annoyance behind the action, because you know he’s just grouchy by nature. He’s been waiting to indulge in your sweetness for far too long now, with an ache so strong it makes his teeth hurt. Like the overgrown, frustrated mutt he is, he sinks them into your skin to soothe the sensation.

“Simon!” You yelp, a sharp little cry that’s mostly born from shock.

“Hmph,” he grunts in return, ever so eloquently.

“Scared of’a nip now, are we darlin’?”

Though it’s enough to make him feel a bit of shame for hurting his sweet thing. He presses his slightly chapped lips against the ruddy imprint his teeth left behind, a wordless apology you will never hear. He doesn’t like wasting time and is impatient to a fault if he doesn’t have an explicit command to hold out any longer. Before there is time to scold him—if you could even find the words to do so—he’s got his fingers curled around the elastic waistband of your sleep shorts and is tearing them away as if they were a personal offense.

Trying to keep him away from his love, that slip of fabric, ain’t it? He hears the satisfying snap of the stitching coming undone down the leg as he rips, chuckling as they get tossed to the side haphazardly.

That’ll teach ‘em.

You seem to have found your voice then, just in time to defend the pair of pajamas. They were nice and new-

(“Sorry, doll. Ya’ know I’ll getcha new ones.")

Gentle simply isn’t the name of his game. Though he can try, and try he might when he’s so afraid of crushing your lively little soul in his calloused, bloodstained hand. It just doesn’t come to him naturally, the way he tends to want to grab your hips and hold you flush to him. But at this moment, he dips his head down until his forehead meets the smooth span of your abdomen, resting there for a moment. Simon’s breathing tickles against your skin, a slow and steady pattern that’s a far cry from all the adrenaline that’s been pumping through him. Your hands gain purchase within the locks of his cropped hair that you can catch between your fingers. His voice is rumbly, a deep growl from low in his throat.

“Missed ya’.”

It’s about as close to singing praises from the heavens as he can offer you, and you greedily drink in every last minimal word he gets out. If he had the capability of belief, he’d be thanking any higher power out there that he’s returned home to what must be the only blessing he was ever offered. Your hands want to wander, want to run down his chest, then lower, and lower—

But he stops you with a silent shake of his head before your desires are executed.

“Just you tonight, luv.”

You know better than to question it—the way he may give but then pull back with intimacy. Some nights he can relish the way you roll those hips on top of him, low moans permitted to spill from his mouth and a tight grip on the back of his oversized t-shirt you tend to be wearing. Others end in a lit cigarette and an hour alone on the porch, scarred figure illuminated by the flame as he tries to wave off your concern. Lost in his mind due to the unwilling thoughts that want to follow any bit of bliss he tries to chase. It’s easier to let him slip and slink through your fingers as he pleases, letting him warm up to you like a feral creature who’s slowly been domesticated.

Delicate, delicate, delicate. He tries to run his thumbs in gentle circles over your body while fighting the urge to press down just hard enough that it will make little purple marks bloom like flowers against your skin, to prove that blood still runs warm through your veins. He doesn’t do it; you deserve to be treated delicately. It earns you a kiss for every intrusive thought he has over the matter, and he’s rewarded in turn with every breathy noise you make from them.

Simon is a man who’s been starved, has been depleted of his life source up until now. The way he ravishes you seems to fit the gnawing hunger he feels accordingly. His actions are desperate and unrefined following the very first taste of your sweetness on his lips. He licks a stripe against you to hear the way you squeal and see how your legs will twitch and shake for him.

“Pretty, pretty,“ he murmurs, not afraid to speak with his mouth full of his favorite meal. What a gift to be engulfed by your beauty when he spends so much time involved in all that’s corrupted and vile.

“And it’s just f’me?”

All of you, that’s what’s for him. Every square inch of your very being, and then whatever else he can find to clutch onto, too. If you give it to him, he’ll slowly return such an offering, piece by piece of the inner workings of such a complicated and complex mind, fragments of that hidden heart being unearthed.

“Yes!” You sob, a choked noise that’s reflective of how long he’s situated himself in this very position, never feeling that he’s had his fill. “Yes, yes, yes-!”

Wave after wave after wave of pleasure, he will give it all to you if you ask. He cramps a few of his thick, calloused fingers inside your warmth, crooking them with expertise gained from attentiveness to what’s *just for him*. He croons as you spill once more, not letting any of your nectar go to waste with a low chuckle at your overstimulated gasps.

There isn’t anything he wants in return as you pant for breath and flush ruddy with exertion—or so he claims. But you know him better than that, guiding his head to lie against your chest. The quick beats of your heart lull him to concede, and the way your hands soothe over his shoulder blades and tattooed bicep certainly doesn’t deter him either. He wants a hand through his hair and your nails lightly raking against his back and you certainly know how to deliver. Making sure to take caution over the raised scar tissue of his marred skin. Those get traced delicately, as if you are connecting stars to create new constellations.

“Bath?” You mumble, the word feeling heavy on your tongue as exhaustion dares to finally try and seep into your bones.

And, well, he wouldn’t say no to that, either.

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶ ༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

Thanks for all the support on my first post! Still learning how to format and improve. TBH I only write when I’m not feeling well or sleep deprived or intoxicated so hopefully this is decent enough lol

Also this was my first attempt w/ writing anything x reader or gender neutral specific so if I did anything wrong plz lmk. Okay thanks byeee

#call of duty #cod #cod modern warfare #cod mw2 #ghost #ghost call of duty #ghost cod #ghost mw2 #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x y/n #ghost x you #simon riley x you

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weebsinstash · 1 day

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Really like the idea of a yandere Vox who is so ride or die for his overconsumerist capitalist Musk-esque lifestyle UNTIL he sees it negatively affecting his darling and does a complete 180

like take that poly red string soulmate Vox x Reader x Alastor concept and, you've got Alastor KINDA warming up to technology and willing to watch TV and do other things with you but he's still not a fan of you being on your phone constantly and some of the video games and movies you consume. He's on the couch reading a paper and (affectionately) rolling his eyes as you and Vox take turns headshotting each other in a video game and hollering "hell yeah, suck my fucking dick!!"

Meanwhile Vox is just 200% chronically online and loving it until one day he asks you why you wear baggy clothes all the time and you're ever so casually replying "because my body is fucking icky, duh" and Vox has absolutely no idea what you're talking about until you break down on a tangent about it

I was watching a clip the other day where someone was pointing out that Marilyn Monroe was considered the 50s icon of beauty and there are plenty of photos with her with thick thighs or a visible belly pooch and, imagine Vox sitting there, the disbelieving 'are you joking?' smile falling off of his face as you just, go OFF, "why would I wear anything other than sweatpants? I have fucking CELLULITE VOX, I'll NEVER have leggings legs no matter how thin I am, and look at my hip dips, they're so fucking GROSS, and my butt isn't shaped right, I have banana rolls, and, do I have siren eyes or doe eyes?! Am I bunny cute or am I frog cute?! And look at how bad my facial balancing is! Ugh, where's my gua sha?! I'm so tired of being UGLY!!"

Later that week Alastor is looking up from his paper to see Vox just, slowly entering the room, sloooooowly shutting the door behind him, looking to his old friend, "so hey! Funny idea, stop me if you've heard this one before but, I was thinking we could uh, maybe take their phone away annnnnnnnnnd... not give it back?" and here's Alastor, "oh, funny story! So earlier today they asked me if I 'wouldn't like them anymore' if they got COSMETIC SURGERY, yeah, ON THEIR FACE BELIEVE IT OR NOT, so, naturally, I'm already one step ahead of you :)" as he just casually gestures to the smashed wifi router in the garbage can in the corner of the room

You just get home from work one day and Vox has his CRT head back on and you're told 'if you want to look something up online, you can use the desktop in the computer room, and only 3 hours of screen time' and it all but blasts you 15 years into the past 💀 no more nights where you're gaming for 5+ hours straight and ruining your sleep. No more skipping meals because you're hyperfocused and binge-watching an anime while also playing an idle game on your phone. No more Alastor and Vox finding out you're just smoking bowls for hours literally nonstop because you need some sort of extra stimulation while you doomscroll and watch 3 hour long roast reviews for shows you've never watched

Alastor catches you swiping through an app and you get a divisive video thrown in your face from some alpha dude bro podcast, "yeah, a real man knows how to protect his lady! She should be at home cooking and keeping the house clean, not running around like a tramp and doing dumb chick stuff! All women need to focus on is marriage and being good wives, you know, a TRADITIONAL relationship!" and Alastor is just, swiping that shit out of your hand, "he DOES have a bit of a point, repulsive as he is! I suppose I'll have to start looking at potential dwellings that can fit you, me, and, I SUPPOSE Vox too 🙄" and little do you know he's already got a cute little home in the 'burbs set up already. He's just... you know! Waiting for the right moment to let you and the annoying TV bastard know that you'll be moving! Maybe he'll just... wait until the day of! Nothing beats a fun surprise, right? ^^ he doesn't want either of you... trying to run away or anything after all haha!

#i actually have had an almost completelt finished vox fic w this conccept sitting in my drafts since like. February #yandere stuff #yandere hazbin hotel #vox x reader #hh #sinprompts

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harlowcomehome · 3 days

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Breathe right strips:

A/N: This is what happens when I can’t stay asleep.

As you stepped foot inside your house, you were met by the loud snores of your husband, sprawled out across the brown leather couch. His curls were uncombed, his socks were dirty and worn, his hoodie was wrinkled and his mouth was agape. His nose whistled ever so slightly with each breath in, but regardless of it all a small smile spread across your face.

He had been waiting for you, but the longer you took to get home the heavier, his eyelids got. He repositioned himself as best as he could on the couch, but he couldn’t fight his exhaustion any longer and eventually laid down on his stomach.

You hadn’t really spent time together in two days, which in the grand scheme of things didn’t seem like a long time, but to the both of you felt like an eternity. Sleeping next to one another wasn’t exactly what you’d consider quality time, but it had to do for now.

You quietly took your heels off, placing them beside the front door as your dog jumped from off the couch to greet you.

“Hi, sweetheart. Hi,” you whispered as you bent down to pet her. She was typically attached to Jack's side but considering he was out cold she made an exception.

You tiptoed to the kitchen, hoping you wouldn’t wake him as you warmed up some leftover chicken from the fridge. The microwave sounded ten times louder than normal, and you internally cringed at the loud humming sound.

“Baby? Is that you?” Jack half-yawned as he sat up, throwing his long arms above his head as he stretched toward the ceiling.

You peeked over the counter, smiling at him as he shuffled over to you in his house slippers. He shivered as he walked over to you with his arms crossed over his chest, goosebumps decorating his arms that were hiding in his thin hoodie.

“It’s cold in here” he mumbled as he stood beside you, you turned standing on your tiptoes to kiss his pouty lips. He was always so grumpy when he first woke up, although he was ecstatic that you were home.

His arms snaked around your waist, pulling you into him as he placed a kiss on your forehead. “I tried to wait up.”

“I know” you hummed as the microwave beeped, startling the both of you.

“Are you hungry?” You knew what the answer would be, already cutting up the warmed chicken breast for the both of you.

“Mhm,” he rubbed his eye with his fist like a child, as you fed him a piece of chicken off your fork.

“You’re so cute when you’re tired” you teased him knowing he didn’t have much energy to fight you on it.

“I’m not tired” he lied, smiling down at you through heavy eyelids.

“Your snoring says something different.”

“Baby!” He gasped, his cheeks growing rosy pink with embarrassment “I ran out of those breathe right strips you gave me!”

“I think it’s kinda cute” you giggled, holding his face in your hand as you stroked his beard with your nails. His eyes were bloodshot and he had a drool stain on his chin but he was still the most handsome man to you.

“I love you” he chuckled still mildly embarrassed.

“I love you more.”

#Jack Harlow #Jack Harlow blurb #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow imagines

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nereidprinc3ss · 2 days

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i have thoughts on reid x dilaudid that i feel like i’ve never seen anyone talk about before so im gonna share

spoilers for s2 ofc and cw for discussions of substance abuse

something im thinking abt right now is that presumably reid was not psychologically or physically dependent on dilaudid yet by the time he was rescued from tobias hankel. of course he was incredibly traumatized and im not saying i wouldn’t anticipate wanting relief from that if i were him, but he could have gone without the drugs. he CHOSE to take the vials from tobias when he left. so if you think about it we didn’t even see the turning point into his addiction—he had to make the choice AGAIN to shoot up at some later point. he obviously knows the statistics abt addiction and the opioid crisis. but we know he really was addicted eventually. so after tobias, he got home and looked at those vials and made that choice to shoot up again, fully aware of what he was doing and all the implications and potential consequences but he was just in that much pain.

like it makes me so so sad to think about how smart he is and how his vast intellect was not enough to stop him at any point in the pursuit of getting high and he was contending with that the whole time, aware that he should be “too smart” for what he’s doing. like he had to procure syringes, he had to consider what he was potentially sacrificing, all while he was completely lucid, and he still made a fully conscious decision that it was more valuable to get high.

or maybe he convinced himself he was just going to use them to wean himself off because it would take a major toll on your body to receive all those drugs in such a short time frame. maybe he thought he could slowly detox. which might be even sadder. or maybe he was lying to himself the whole time and knew he just wanted to give himself permission to get high again. idk.

regardless it’s really really sad to think about how much effort he had to put into doing something he knew was terrible for him and how he chose it again and again because that’s how much he was hurting. like that scene of him holding the bottles and looking in the mirror at work hits a lot harder when you realize his addiction was not something just happened to him. he can’t entirely shirk the blame. i can’t even imagine how much self loathing he would have had going on at that time

(also i am fully aware that addiction is an illness and in many regards not a choice at all, but im saying its not likely he was actually clinically diagnostically addicted to dilaudid by the time he was freed. in that sense, he did make choices which contributed to his addiction, and he had to live with that, which i think is really highlighted by him looking in the mirror like what the fuck have i done to myself)

anyways im so sad now😂😂😂😂!!!!!! this is one of my favorite plot lines it was done so dirty!!

#ramblings #headcanons #spencer reid

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meowhara · 1 day

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࿐.ೃ࿔*:･ 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒃𝒚𝒔𝒔 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒆

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ miguel o’hara x fem siren!reader

cw : blood and gore (not much but still)

synopsys : miguel's residence was a unique one, though nobody knew the existence of a deadly being inhabiting beneath it

It was always the same question whenever anyone visited his house. They’re always wondering why it was built like that. Some parts of his house where the tiles should be, were replaced by thick glasses. Clear enough to see the deep blue water underneath. His house was practically built over a gigantic man made body of water. It wasn’t an empty body of water either, there was life thriving underneath. The variety of fishes no matter what sizes or kind live there with coral reefs and underwater plants for the aquatic creatures to live in. Making a whole complete living underwater ecosystem.

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?” Miguel huffed, his back facing the man that considered him a friend just because they met back in college.

“You. Look at this place.”

“Was that supposed to be an insult?” He popped open a bottle of fine alcohol and poured a glass for himself, then leaned on the kitchen’s counter before taking a sip.

“No… Not really.” The man reverts his gaze to the wide window behind Miguel. The marine life beyond that window was just stunning. For somebody like Miguel, having this kind of lifestyle wouldn’t be anyone’s first guess.

Miguel rolled his eyes from his reply, walking off from the counter with his drink before walking upstairs. “Would you mind leaving? I’m busy.” He scowled.

“Why? Are you hiding something?”

Miguel’s eyes twitched, isn’t he just polite?

He set himself down on a couch in the middle of the room. The living room was a unique one. There’s a spot where the tiles are supposed to be, left absent and empty. Leaving a literal two rectangular pool connected to each other’s ends, with a wide angle where an “L” shaped marine blue sofa that stretches for at least three meters long on both of its sides. A coffee table made out of thin marble with an oval shape in the center which was also in blue, decorated with gold lining.

The pool, oddly, is a wide one. It was made so that a whole human could slip through it, rather than for decorational purposes. Nobody really pointed it out in the past though, it seems to be a normal thing for anyone to have in their home if they had the money for it. Most people would drown from how deep the pool is if they're not careful. The bottom of the pool was out of the question from how deep it was intentionally made.

The ceiling was high above with water flowing down, forming a thin wall made out of water. Flowing down onto the same pool in the middle of the room. Tall windows on one end of the house, showcasing the breathtaking beauty of Nueva York, especially at night.

His eyes focused on the ill-mannered man he barely knows. Watching each one of his moves carefully.

“Don’t you have a Girlfriend?”

“Broke up.” He answered quickly as the man stood before him after he finished strolling around uninvitedly.

“How did you get your hands on these types of creatures anyway? I’ve never even seen some of the fishes you have swimming around underneath these tiles.” He tapped his feet onto the transparent material underneath his feet. The fishes swam away from the loud thumping noises of his feet.

“I have my own way.” He spoke before taking another sip.

“Illegal?”

“No.” After a long pause, he continues, “Would you mind doing me a favor?” Miguel added.

“What favor?”

“Taking a few steps away?”

“What? Why?”

He shrugged, “Personal space.”

“Geez.” Unsuspectingly, he took a few steps back until his feet were almost touching the edge of the floating platform.

A low whistle escapes Miguel’s mouth seconds before a creature with high speed emerges from underneath the water. Slamming the unsuspecting man into the ground, knocking air out of his lungs. He felt its sharp fangs digging into his flesh with the creature’s weight pushing him forcefully onto the ground. A creature with a human-like body and a massive fin instead of legs hisses their sharp fangs at him, their hair long with water dripping down. Its eyes are as dangerous as the dark mysterious sea, ready to devour him at any second. The man’s eyes widened in sheer panic as he tried to push whatever it was away.

A smile plastered across the host’s face. Calmly sipping all the remaining wine into his system with his back relaxing against his seat. The man screamed, fighting for his life. He even begged for Miguel to save him. But he was too busy watching your beautiful form ripping flesh out of your prey’s body with your mouth. Watching his pet feasting on her favorite meal of the day. His screams died down eventually. The scene was a complete mess, chunks of meat everywhere with a mixture of blood and water splattered across the floor.

Miguel set the empty glass in his hand down before standing up and closing the distance between the both of you slowly. When you saw him approaching you and your meal, you hissed at him.

“Easy there, cupcake.” He scoffed, “I’m not going to steal him away.”

He stood there as you possessively dragged the remaining of your meal back into the pool. Drowning it with you. “That brat.” The word came out from his mouth followed by a chuckle and a shake of his head.

“Lyla, clean this shit up for me.” He commanded the programmed woman.

“You're spoiling her Miguel.” She complained, her hollow body flickering in the dim lit room.

“I'm not. My baby got what she deserves.”

This has been going on for a pretty long time. People disappeared after entering his home, especially the uninvited ones. Although, there are some exceptions. There is someone that loves crashing into his place.

“How many times did I tell you to stop coming here?” His arms crossed over his chest as he scolded the only person that would leave his abode unharmed.

“It's not my fault you made this place very interesting.”

“That was not a reason for you to keep coming here every time I went to work.”

“Aww, don't brothers share?” Gabriel teased.

“I hate you.” Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“I won't be coming here ever again.”

Miguel raised his eyebrow, unamused by his little brother's promise.

“I won't be coming here ever again, if you let me have a party here.”

“No.” He didn't even think before the answer left his mouth.

“Then I'll pester you until the end of my life.”

“Go on then. I would rather you bother me rather than inviting people here.”

“Come on, my friends would love this place.”

Miguel's eyes were not focused on him after he saw a glimpse of your eyes inside the pool from where he's standing. He saw the hunger in your eyes upon looking at his brother, a tasty meal for your kind. He knew this would happen that's why he never invited anyone over except for your feeding time every once in a while.

But there's no way he would let you feast on his own family, he shook his head with a serious look on his face. He knew that you would listen to him either way, so he sighed as he watched you disappeared before his eyes.

“If you still want to live, leave.” Miguel spoke with a firm tone in his voice.

“But—”

“I said no to your stupid party and that's final. Leave before I told Lyla to never let you in here ever again.”

“You would ban me from coming here just because of this?”

“Gabriel.” He warned, insisted on letting him stay and telling him the reason why was never the best move to pull no matter what the situation is. Miguel watches as he leaves, listening to his brother swearing under his breath before the door shut by itself. The sound of small waves of water followed by ripples of water made Miguel turn his body to look at your head peeking out of the pool with a frown evident on your face. Breaking his heart from how sad you look after not getting what you wanted, he hates disappointing you.

Your eyes were fixed on the door, hoping your walking food would come back. “I know baby, I know. I'm sorry, okay? But you can't eat him.” He lowers himself to touch your face, gently caressing your cheek. You keep your head fixed on the door without hissing at Miguel. Human language is a foreign one to your ears, you can't understand anything, just a few basic words. Miguel was fully aware of this so he repeated himself. The certain word will always taste bitter to his mouth when it comes to pleasing you. “No baby, you can't eat him.”

Your frown worsens from the word ‘no’. You're not sure what it means, all you understand is that every time the word escapes his mouth, he won't let you get what you desire. “I'll make it up to you tomorrow, I promise.”

After that, he fed you even more men to satisfy your hunger. Their bodies sunk into the abyss of water where the monster he fell in love with abode.

#miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara #miguel ohara #atsv miguel #miguel o'hara fanfiction #miguel o'hara x you #miguel spiderverse #siren #siren reader

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allfortheslay25 · 16 hours

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Hii, I love your drawings especially the siren and mermaid ones! I just have a question, why did Neil eat Dr*ke's body? Is it like an instinct type of thing or to hide the body or something else?

Sirens are cannibals. They eat mermaids and other sirens. Kevin and Neil are not keen on eating mermaids or sirens but Neil has eaten his fair share of them when he was still living with his father.

Mermaids will often wrap their dead with seaweed or other plants and toss the bodies into nearby pits. They try to stay ignorant but they know sirens or sharks eat the bodies.

Neil knew that the Monsters would be stuck with Dr*ke’s corpse and he was already consumed by rage by what he’d done so Neil decided to eat him.

The comic was originally meant to extend to the rest reaction. Nicky gets nauseous because even if it is human trash, he never wanted to believe Neil could eat them. Aaron is terrified since this was his fear from the start. Andrew doesn’t know if he should be attracted to this or not. Kevin is actually just plain embarrassed because he thinks Neil has bad manners. But Kevin realizes quickly how horrified the Monsters are so he tries to get Neil to stop (Kevin doesn’t want the Monsters to see them differently)

Neil later explains to Andrew that he would never eat a person like Nicky or even Andrew’s horrible uncle. Dr*ke didn’t count because Neil didn’t consider him a person. To Neil, he was just a slab of meat stinking up their home so Neil took care of it

If it were instinct, Kevin would have joined him. This was all just Neil and his rage

(This does cause a small rift in the Monsters for a while.)

Nicky and Aaron can’t face Neil or Kevin (for different but similar reasons) and Andrew is all that keeps the two sides together. Neil refuses to apologize or soothe their worries and anything Kevin says is just being shut down by the image of Neil tearing out a man’s throat

They sleep separately and Andrew is not fond of picking sides (so he doesn’t) He forces himself into his old den which he hasn’t used in ages (it’s a solitary cave within their territory)

Nicky and Aaron have constant nightmares and tend to go to Andrew to make sure he’s in one piece (they rotate responsibility) meanwhile Neil is a bit hurt by their actions so he sticks with sleeping by Kevin until Nicky and Aaron can tolerate them

It takes a while and a few half hearted jokes on Nicky’s part before they can function during dinner (Andrew is relived, he’s tired of having to hunt twice for one dinner)

#aftg #all for the game #all for the fish #andreil #the monsters #q&a

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makyurini · 23 hours

Text

She Washes All of My Wounds For Me | Touya Todoroki

cw/tw: NSFT, fem reader (AFAB anatomy, femme pet names), so so SO much hurt/comfort, a lot of angels/heavenly/sinners/god-like imagery, touya is so desperate to be loved and in so much denial about it, one (1) little teeny weeny mention of Sir kink as a joke, one (1) verbal argument, touya breaks a piece of furniture during said argument but does NOT hurt reader, touya is too stubborn for his own good, drunk touya however is less stubborn, drunk apologies in the rain because i am not immune to cliches, oral and fingering (f! receiving), reader does have a Bush, praise and praise and praise and praise, super duper soft smut with obsessive undertones because of who i am as a person, touya also VERY vocal in bed, happy ending (in more ways than one)

wc: 15,240

a/n: you all thought i forgot about my re-uploads? (i did but shhh) here is one of the most personal fanfics i’ve ever written and probably my favorite (so far). enjoy! <3

The first time you call Dabi by his name, he swears he sees a halo floating above your head, glitter cascading down the face he’s spent months memorizing and the body he would consider his home if he deemed himself worthy.

He never knew a thing that has brought him so much pain, so much agony, something he thought was forever cursed to be a shameful thing to hide behind skeletons in dusty closets could sound so sweet, so tender, so gentle.

But he supposes every world that falls out of the mouth of an angel is bound to sound heavenly.

His limbs are tangled with yours, his head is pressed against your shoulder in hopes that maybe you can share the burden that lies on his, his heart has been cut out of his chest and locked in yours for safe keeping, and yet he can’t believe you still manage to find ways to rock him down to his very core. You’re a saint, something so ethereal and otherworldly he never thought his temporal hands would have a chance to touch you, and yet you still choose a sinner over your throne in the clouds.

It’s a miracle, really, his tainted soul hasn’t scared you off yet. Maybe you’re just as stubborn as he is. Maybe you see him as a charity case. Maybe, just maybe, you do love him and all of his broken pieces no matter how much they bite at your skin and dye them the color of mortals. And the fact that you can say his name with so much purity—as if it really is just another typical Friday evening spent together after a week of trying to bring hero society down and not you changing everything he knows about that goddamn name—just shows how much he doesn’t deserve you.

“What did you call me?” he asks, his face never daring to leave the crook of your neck in fear of you seeing the vulnerability in his eyes, but he can’t hide it from his voice. He knows how he sounds—knows he sounds like a child lost in a world that is far too vast for him to comprehend. Blood rushes in his ears, his hands shake as they grip your hips, blunt fingernails digging into your flesh in a vain attempt to starve off the longing that is filling his bones. It’s consuming him—chewing through calcium and turning it to mere dust between greedy enamel that only knows how to feed on what little affection he receives.

Your fingers lace themselves in his hair, a signal to let him know he’s safe, he’s okay, there’s no reason to sharpen his tongue and forge his armor around you. His heart is starved of love and you’re more than happy to flood it with so much dedication he fears it may burst out of his chest—worthless bones unable to contain all of the emotions he’s tried so hard to keep locked away. “I called you by your name. Is that okay?”

“I don’t know.”

And it isn’t because he doesn’t want you to know his name. He’s already announced it to the world. Of course, you’re going to know it. It certainly isn’t because he hates the way your lips so easily form the two syllables. It isn’t because he no longer wants to associate himself with the name.

He’s simply afraid of his greedy soul becoming attached to the way you somehow manage to make something that used to cause his skin to crawl now bring his heart a peace he’s never known before he saw your face.

“Can I call you it again?”

And you sound so uncertain, so scared you’ve prodded at bruises you didn’t even know existed, terrified of reopening a wound you’ve tried to stitch up before it bled all over your hands, that he can’t help but pull his face away from its safe space and rest his sapphire eyes on yours. Though they shake, he still runs his fingers along your lower lip and tugs so he can look at your teeth and all of the words sitting in them. You look as nervous as he feels. He’ll never tell you that, however, will never let you know how much power a simple word has over him—how much power you have over him. He’s a murderer with an agenda who has allowed rebellion and anger to corrupt his burning body. He can’t let something as fickle as love distract him from his end goal.

But sometimes, he thinks, it might be okay to allow himself to be loved, especially when you make it seem so simple.

“Just don’t get used to it, sweetcheeks,” he muses, a mask of ease sliding over his face, and pulls your body closer to his. “That version of me died long ago.”

“Maybe we can resurrect him,” you whisper into his hair, and it’s then when he realizes he lost control long ago when it comes to you.

And before he can snap back that he killed it himself, you gently kiss the tips of his fingers with a touch so tender, his lungs forget how to function properly.

Still, he manages to mutter, “Some things are better left dead. No use in trying to bring something back to life that wants to stay dead.”

“But what if it never had a chance to live?”

“Then it makes grieving a lot easier. Less memories. Less things to be sad about.”

“Or it makes it more of a tragedy.” And it’s so gentle as how you say it, full of such sorrow for a man you never got to meet. The grief in your eyes pulls at his heartstrings until they’re completely unraveled, put on display for your pure eyes to dissect and analyze, and for once in his life, he isn’t afraid.

Still, only fools allow themselves to be distracted by emotions, and Dabi is anything but a fool. Using his body weight against yours, he easily flips your bodies over so you’re now straddling him, his rough hands ghosting over your soft skin and all of the imperfections he loves so much. His fingers easily find the places that turn you into a whimpering mess above him, and he regains the control he thought he lost long ago.

“C’mon, babe, I had a rough week. Let’s not talk about it, yeah? Let me just make you feel good. Doesn’t that sound so nice? Crying from my cock instead of a stupid name?” Before you can protest, he slips his thumb past your lips and presses it against your tongue, effectively rendering you speechless as you reflexively begin sucking on the digit. “Now that’s a good girl. Let’s not worry about something stupid, okay? Now, what’s my name?”

“Sir,” you moan out around his hand, drool coating his palm in a lewd way that causes all of his blood to rush to his dick.

“That’s the only name I care about.”

The second time you call Dabi by his name, he remembers why it brings him so much pain.

It was such an odd thing to get angry about. After everything he’s done, the stunts he’s pulled, the countless times he’s burned his body trying to set others ablaze, you choose to get mad over the fact that he had to go radio silent for two weeks to keep you out of the attention of those who want to take him down. It’s nothing new, nothing you haven’t been through before. Hell, he’s had to disappear for a month before, and you welcomed him back with open arms.

So why? Why get angry now? Why do your eyes hold such hostility when looking at him? It’s something he’s grown accustomed to from strangers, from heroes who claim to fight for the greater good, from family members who forget the past, from colleagues who don’t agree with his extreme ideals. But from you? Such a thing could bring a man to his knees and grovel for forgiveness.

But not Dabi. Never Dabi. Dabi doesn’t bow to anyone—not even angels with pretty wings and glowing halos.

“What’s the big fucking deal?” he scoffs and plants himself in one of your kitchen chairs, an apple in his hand and a neutral expression on his face to hide the pain burning at his guts. “So what, I had to lay low for a little while? In case that pretty little head of yours forgot: I’m a goddamn villain and you, good samaritan, are not.”

“The big fucking deal, Touya,” you reply through clenched teeth, hands balls in fists and shaking at your sides, “is you just exposed the number one hero in Japan and then disappear for two weeks. I thought you died. I thought they locked you up and threw away the fucking key.”

The sapphires in his skull alight with a fire you haven’t seen in a while, and he grumbles dangerously low, “Don’t think you can just sling that name around to get a reaction out of me, doll, because you ain’t gonna like what’ll happen.” before taking a bite out of his apple.

Closing the space between your bodies, you smack the cursed fruit out of his hand, demanding his attention be solely on you, your chest pressed against his, noses nearly touching as you bare your fangs down at him in hopes he’ll back down. He doesn’t, of course. Instead, he stands right up, towering over you, chair clattering to the floor from the sheer speed of him getting on his feet, his own fangs on display and covered in blood.

“Oh? What’s gonna happen?” you challenge. “Are you gonna disappear? Make me think you’re dying in a goddamn gutter? Or maybe you’ll reveal your identity on live TV for all of Japan to see, expose your family for the abuse and trauma they put you through, also out the number two hero as a fucking murderer, and then randomly not answer any of my calls or texts for two weeks and leave me here to wonder what the absolute fuck is going on? Oh wait, you already did that.”

When Dabi speaks, it’s a voice he barely even recognizes, a voice he’s only heard in the back of his head and never dared to speak aloud—unhinged, angry, scared. A voice he never, ever thought would be directed towards you. But you’re so stubborn, so hellbent on babying a man who has been on his own since he was a child. Though, he supposes he has no one to blame but himself. He is, after all, a goddamn villain, and you, good samaritan, are not.

“What the fuck else am I supposed to do?” The voice shakes with a fear he’s never wanted to show: a fear of losing you—the only thing he’s ever considered worth keeping. “Do you want Endeavor, my father, to come knocking at your door looking for me? Or maybe you want Hawks sending one of his stupid goddamn feathers in here to eavesdrop on you? Want the entire fucking hero commission here tearing your place apart? Do you want to go to prison because...because—” Because I love you.

It hangs in the air between your heaving bodies—a secret he thought he had kept close to his heart, but, looking into your tear-filled eyes, knows that his heart has always been on his sleeve around you. There’s no hiding anything from you because you’ve spent hours, days, weeks, months listening to all of the whispers trapped inside fragile bones and stringing together memories locked away inside of an unstable mind. You knew him before he even knew himself.

His eyes flit around your face in search of any signs of fleeting, any telltales of abandoning him now that you’ve seen all of his ugliness. Because love is such an ugly thing. Love makes people burn their bodies from the inside out just so someone will finally gaze at their flames. Love makes people spend years with the wrong person in hopes that one day they’ll receive the affections they’ve been craving all along. Love makes people foolish, irrational, idiotic. And Dabi has always considered himself smarter than the average man.

The anger in your eyes has dissipated down to pain, and he isn’t sure which one he preferred more. Your hand comes up to cup his cheeks, and he allows it for a breath’s moment before smacking it away as if it were offensive somehow, the limb falling limply by your side before balling into a fist. Anger returns, and it’s then he decides he’d rather have the anger than the hurt. It’s easier to cause a heart rate to spike than it is to stitch a wound.

“Because why, Dabi? Why the hell would I go to prison?” you dare to ask.

“Because we fuck around and they’d be able to trace you back to me.”

The words fall from his lips faster than he can catch them, splattering against your skin with an acid strong enough to strip you down to the bone, put on display and scared of scarring as it eats away at your body. It’s too late for regrets when he sees your eyes cloud over with an agony he can’t even begin to decipher. It wasn’t supposed to hurt you. It was supposed to piss you off, to rebuild the walls he allowed you to carefully deconstruct. He was supposed to make you hate him, to make you forget what the definition of love is and associate his face with villainous tasks not for the faint of heart.

He wasn’t supposed to hurt you.

“So that’s all this is?” you whisper, lowering your head and tucking your fangs back into your gums for safe-keeping. Your voice is strikingly low, quiet even, but that doesn’t stop each word from lacerating at Dabi’s barely-beating heart. “I’m just some fuck to you? Like the days I’ve spent rubbing your back because you drank too much the night before didn’t mean shit? Or the nights we’ve spent telling each other secrets and talking about a future without corrupted heroes was all just fun and games for you? None of it meant anything? I didn’t mean anything? Is that what you’re saying, Dabi?”

Venom sits in his enamel, eroding his tongue and any semblance of self-control he had.

It burns, it burns, it burns.

He thought he’d be used to burning by now—burning forests, burning bodies, burning himself. To be alive is to set yourself on fire, and Dabi bares the scars of his livelihood. It’s all he knows, all he was taught by a man who was determined to have the brightest flame the world has ever seen.

It burns, it burns, it burns.

Touya died in a self-inflicted fire set ablaze by a child who only wanted his father’s love and attention. Is Dabi going to die by yet another fire set ablaze by a man who doesn’t know how to allow himself to be loved?

It burns, it burns, it burns.

It burns to see you so hurt. It burns to know he’s the reason behind it. It burns to look in your cold eyes and see his own angry reflection in them. It burns to see your fists shake and wonder if you’re imagining driving them into his cheeks. It burns to know that he’s losing another home because even now, after all of these years, he still isn’t good enough.

The table sitting next to him splinters into a thousand little pieces as he drives his fist through the wood, all of his frustration and anger towards himself channeled into his bony knuckles. You don’t even flinch at the action, and that only seems to anger him even more. “I didn’t ask you to do any of that shit! You volunteered, in case you forgot, sweetcheeks. I didn’t come knocking at your door asking you to take care of me. You invited me in. You offered me a place to stay. You gave me food to eat, hot water to bathe in, a bed to sleep in. And what the fuck was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, no thank you, hot stranger, I’ll just stay homeless and sleep with rats in a cardboard box’?”

“You didn’t have to pretend to love me,” you shout back, eyes flitting around like a wild animal, fists trembling at your side, chest heaving as if you just ran a mile. “You didn’t have to rip yourself open and put on this whole ‘poor me, poor Dabi’ act if that’s how you really feel. You could’ve just been some typical useless roommate who pops in every now and then. You didn’t have to pretend. You...you didn’t have to lie to me.”

“Wait, I—”

“Oh, no, no it’s fine, Dabi. It’s fine. I’m the one who got caught up in their feelings. It was my mistake. I put way more thought into this than you did. It’s fine, really.”

But it isn’t fine. None of this is fine. The crystals forming in your eyes aren’t fine. The wounds splitting open on your chest aren’t fine. Your shaking hands and tight knuckles aren’t fine. His bleeding heart isn’t fine. His bulging throat clogged with every word he wished he could say isn’t fine. His fists filled with splitters and emotions aren’t fine.

Nothing is fine.

But you’re so determined to protect the treasure in your chest you thought was safe in the hands of a thief (what a foolish, naive thing to think, really), that you’re willing to believe any lie. As long as it’s sweeter than the bitter truth, it’ll go down easier. Deep down, you know the reality behind all of the smoke and mirrors, know it before Dabi runs over to your side with his puppy-dog eyes and dulled flames, have known it since the first time the criminal fell asleep in your arms: he trusts you. And that, for Dabi, means more than something as fleeting as love. Granted, lingering somewhere in that scarred heart of his, you know he loves you. He wouldn’t keep coming around if he didn’t. He wouldn’t steal for you, sneak away from his group for you, try (and fail miserably) to cook for you, include you in his plans, allow you to call him by his name… But loving something as explosive as Dabi means you’re bound to get burned at some point, and you have a funny feeling you’re going to need some salve tonight.

“I...I didn’t mean it like that,” Dabi rushes to reassure you, his hands trying their hardest to find the wounds he caused even though he doesn’t know the first thing about healing. “I just… I’m not the best when it comes to this emotional bullshit, y'know?”

Flinching away from his touch, you whisper, “I think you should go.”

“C’mon, doll—”

“I mean it, Dabi.” Your voice is firmer now, steadier, and you wrap your arms protectively around your body.

“You’re kidding, right?” he incredulously replies. “I didn’t mean it. You’ve gotta believe me, doll. It was just something stupid that slipped out, and you’re gonna kick me to the curb for it? Just toss me aside after everything we’ve been through? After everything I’ve told you? I let you call me my fucking name, and you’re cutting me out over a dumbass mistake?”

And right behind his sapphire eyes, tucked away in the corners of his skull, he can see the white hot flames again, burning away at the tips of his fingers, dancing across his tongue and leaving blisters, new scars decorating his heart and flooding his lungs. He’s choking and sputtering, and though he knows he has the power to stop them, he can’t help but lose himself in the familiar sensation. It feels good to be on fire again. It’s home, it’s all he knows, it’s all he can truly feel—just fire, fire, fire.

Dabi, if nothing, is a man meant to burn. He was born with a flame his body can barely contain, and he’s determined to allow the world to burn with him.

And though he knows how close he was to finding a new home in your bones, and he knows how close he was to having his sins forgiven and the bloods on his hands washed off, he knows he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve any of the smiles flashed at him, any of the seconds spent in your arms, any of the kisses exchanged between hungry mouths, any of the secrets placed on his lips for safe-keeping, any of the butterflies fluttering in his guts.

He was made for destruction, and he’ll die for it as well.

And though he doesn’t want to hurt you, he knows it’s inevitable. Fire doesn’t discriminate against who it burns. He’s living, breathing evidence of that.

When your eyes meet, he can already see the scars forming over them, can see his handprint seared onto the cornea and a new cautionary tale for you: never trust the man with blue eyes to match his blue flames.

“It’s time to go, Dabi,” you state, jaw tight and twitching with anger.

He sneers down at you, “Don’t you mean Touya?”

“He died a long time ago, remember?”

You might as well slapped him in the face, spat in his eye, curse his name and everything he stands for. It hurts more than his own flames ever will—the ice in your scarred eyes, the gates closing around your soul, your fingers curling in on themselves, your lips sewing themselves shut. You’re closing yourself off to him, and he has no idea what to do now that you’ve changed all of the locks and threw away the keys. He’s over, done with, nothing more than the same traumatized child willing to burn himself alive just to have someone look at him for more than a second.

He’s Touya Todoroki: young, naive, driven, boisterous, eager to see the world and be a part of it, ready to prove himself worthy of being born.

He’s Dabi: self-destructive, sadistic, crude, violent, determined to tear the world apart, ready to prove how hypocritical heroes truly are.

He’s neither: scared, lost, unsure if he ever really was any of that, not quite the boy who wants his father’s love but not quite the man who wants to destroy him, unsteady on his feet as he tries to find his place in this ever-shifting world.

He’s both: driven, self-destructive, naive, eager to see the world, determined to tear it apart, ready to prove himself worthy of being born and show how hypocritical heroes truly are.

He doesn’t know who he is anymore, who he wants to be.

All he knows is you’ve given up on him, and that hurts more than any flame that has touched his skin before.

He leaves without another word, no more venom flung at you to add to the scars he’s left, no more furniture broken with shaking fists and scabbed knuckles, no more fiery eyes and sharp tongues. Just a man who has lost the only home he ever truly had.

The third time you call Dabi his name, he learns that love, as dangerous as it is, can heal even the deepest of wounds, and he’s ready to rid himself of the scars that have haunted his skin for as long as he dares to remember.

He isn’t sure how he’s wound up in front of your apartment, rain pouring down on him because his life was never a cliche until he met you, alcohol sitting heavy in his stomach and grounding his feet, new burns spreading across his abdomen and tainting what little skin he has left. He doesn’t want you to see them. He doesn’t want your fingers to trace the spaces his flames have violated and stained with their hatred. He doesn’t want your eyes to flash with pity as they scan him. He doesn’t want your lips to turn down into a frown when you open your door and see his soaked body, crooked grin on his face because everything about him is a little crooked, old staples missing and new ones in new places, his chest cracked open and put on display for you.

He isn’t sure what he’s hoping to get out of this surprise visitation. A part of him hopes to see you angry, because if you’re angry you care, and he isn’t sure how fit he is for a world where you no longer care about him. A part of him hopes to see you apathetic, because that would confirm the belief he isn’t worth anything anymore, and that would make destroying himself a little easier. Another, smaller part of him, hopes to see you happy, to see relief wash your features and erase the fight you two had about love and other fickle things. It might be impossible at this point, but he’s never been one for easy goals.

All Dabi truly knows, however, is he wants to see you. It’s really as simple as that, and though he isn’t a simple man and doesn’t like simple things, the desire to see you is that—simple. It’s been haunting him since he stumbled out of your apartment blinded with anger and fear. How long has it been since he’s stood here? A week? Two weeks? A month? Time becomes such a messy thing when it’s spent trying to find the next surefire way to burn your bones.

Despite the clothes clinging to his skin, he feels naked, stripped of all of his armor and put on display for you to use and dispose however you please. Dabi isn’t the type to come crawling back to places he isn’t wanted. He’d much rather fake his own death and fly under the radar for years until he’s long forgotten about. But Dabi has also never been the type to look at the stars and try to find someone’s name written in them. He’s never been the type to try to find a face in a sea of people bustling about their days without having to worry about how they’re going to make the world know about them. He’s never tried to find meaning in the clouds or why some planets revolve around stars together while others just crash into each other.

But then he met you and suddenly, he cared. He cared about why some birds hid from the rain while others embraced it. He cared about why stars liked to hide and where they disappeared to. He cared about why some wounds healed and served as a cautionary tale and why others stuck around and served as a personality trait. He cared about Touya Todoroki—the boy whose only dream was to be what his father wanted and to be loved by those who were in his life. And that, he thinks, is the scariest thing he’s ever done. To hate is easy, it’s simple, and though he’s not a simple man and doesn’t like simple things, he loved it. He loved being able to burn those who hurt him and have his world be as simple as: if it isn’t beneficial, turn it to ashes. Black and white and blue. That’s all it was.

Then he saw you look at him as if he had personally strung the stars in the sky for you and suddenly, the universe seemed a lot bigger than sick mothers and neglectful fathers.

He still doesn’t quite understand it and, truth be told, he doesn’t think he ever wants to understand it. For once in his life, he’s okay with leaving this mystery unsolved. He’s okay with having more questions than answers. He’s okay with having an unfinished puzzle and not turning over furniture looking for the right piece to complete the picture.

As long as he has you, he’s okay with finding out who Touya could have been before he burned him to ashes.

The light from your apartment floods his sensitive eyes when you swing the door open, and he almost misses the confusion that flashes across your face before you settle for a guarded expression.

“What are you doing here?” It, like most things, is a simple question, but it still hurts nonetheless, especially when paired with your arms crossing over your body and your tone pointedly flat.

And, like most things, the answer is simple: “I wanted to see you, baby.”

You quirk an eyebrow up, but the rest of you remain emotionless, detached. “Baby? That’s a new one.”

He grins. “I’ve been trying out a lot of new things lately.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Oh, you know, calling you baby. Sleeping by myself. Not killing everyone who pisses me off. Admitting when I fuck up.”

What little amusement you allow to seep through is promptly sealed shut behind a frown, and you wrap your arms tighter around your torso in an effort to protect yourself from his charm. “You can’t just show up here and apologize and think that fixes everything. You really hurt me, Dabi.”

“But you haven’t heard the other new things I’ve been trying.”

You huff, knowing once Dabi has his sights on something it’s near impossible to distract him. He’s headstrong, determined, and that’s one of the many reasons you fell in love with him (and got burned for it). “Fine, I’ll listen. But we aren’t doing it out here in the rain. I’m cold and tired and want to finish my tea.”

For the first time in weeks, you allow him in your home, and it pains him how much hasn’t changed. While his entire world was falling apart, the same shoes have stayed by your front door, the same throw blanket has been strewn across the back of your couch, the same kettle sits on your stovetop, the same jackets hang on your coat rack, and you’ve even managed to find the same table to replace the one he smashed. Your life has remained the same without him, and that is something worth shedding a tear over if he could.

He tries to sit on your couch, but you quickly stop him. “You’re soaking wet,” you reason, and motion for him to go to the bathroom. “I think I have some of your old clothes around here somewhere. Wait there and I’ll bring them to you.”

Thankfully, your compassion has remained the same as well. As he stands in your small bathroom built for one person, rain and the last of his ego dripping off of him, he’s reminded of the first time your paths crossed, when he passed out in an alleyway due to overuse of his quirk and woke up in a bed that smelled like tea leaves, old books, and love. He remembers wandering into the kitchen and finding you humming to yourself, a robe wrapped tightly around your body, two mugs of tea on your table, comfort radiating off of your skin and flooding the tiny space. He remembers how high you had jumped when you realized he had woken up, how quickly you rushed to make sure he knew where the bathroom was and how to properly work your shower so he may bathe, how you had a plate full of food ready for him when he returned to your kitchen a clean man.

He remembers asking you why let a strange, scary-looking man who was unconscious in a shady alley sleep in your home, and you simply replied over your mug, “because you look like someone who doesn’t receive help often.” It was so simple then, and he wasn’t used to simplicity. So ke kept coming around, trying to unravel the mystery of why such a sweet person would help such a tainted one, kept asking questions and prodding at your brain in hopes that maybe he’d find out you’re just as sick as he is. That was never the case, of course. It was and always has been as simple as you being a good person and him being someone in need of a home.

He’s drunk and nostalgic, which is not a good combination for men with shattered souls and too many scars to keep track of and generous people with giving hearts and healing words. And although a part of him feels as if he’s taking advantage of the kindness you have shown him, he can’t bring himself to feel guilty. Maybe it’s the selfish animal in his heart that refuses to release its sharp teeth. Maybe it’s how even after all of these months spent together, you manage to find a way to surprise him. Maybe, just maybe, he’s finally ready to accept the love you’ve been offering him. Whatever it is that’s fueling this selfish desire to lock you away in his chest, nestled right between his lungs, safe from the others with sharp teeth and even sharper tongues, he’s allowing it to roam free and take whatever it wants.

He strips himself of his clothing just in time for you to knock at the door, your gentle voice ringing through the wood. “I found some clothes.”

“Well, bring ‘em in,” he replies.

“Are you naked?”

He rolls his eyes, though you can’t see him. “C’mon, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“But—”

“Just open the door, baby.”

His voice is soft as he says it—so soft, in fact, you aren’t sure if you heard him correctly. But you did, and you’re more than aware of the fact that you’re about to see him soaked down to the bone and as naked as the moon in the sky. Hesitantly, you open the door just enough to accommodate your arm, and right when you slide your handful of clothes through the crack, Dabi’s fingers brush against yours. Electricity runs down your skin—hot, familiar, exhilarating. It steals the breath from your lungs, makes you feel as if the wooden floor beneath your feet is shifting, reminds you of how good it felt to have his rough skin pressed against yours. It’s far too tempting to rip the door open and drink in the sight of the man who holds your heart in his scarred palm, and if you still weren’t so hurt over his words, you might have. You almost think Dabi is going to do it, but, much to your surprise, he doesn’t.

“Do you mind closing the door? The draft is a little cold.” He isn’t being ornery about it. There’s no sneer to his voice. He’s almost...kind about it. Tender. Something you never thought you would associate with the man who just weeks ago plotted to murder his younger brother in order to seek revenge against his father.

You nearly slam in the door in your haste to close it and stutter out, “S-Sorry!” before scrambling to your couch. Whoever this Dabi is, you aren’t sure. The last time you saw him, he was angry, hurt, ready to burn everything he has ever known in a vain attempt to feel something other than the pain throbbing in his chest. He was a wounded animal lashing out at anything that dared to try to get close to him. He was a jaded man who never thought himself worthy of kindness. He was impulsive, impatient, self-destructive, and, above all else, vengeful. Whoever has come knocking at your door is not the man who walked out of it. This man, whoever he may be, is humble, quiet, hesitant, and retrospective.

He’s also drunk and has been out wandering in the rain.

Dabi joins you on the couch before your mind can start spinning in circles, his white hair still sticking to his face and droplets cascading down his face, sapphire orbs shining with something you can’t quite put your finger on but still shakes you down to your core. He isn’t irate. He isn’t breaking furniture or complaining about Shigaraki’s next foolish move or ranting about how Endeavor has foiled his latest plan or about how he doesn’t trust Hawks and all of his easy smiles and charming laughter. He’s calm, his hands resting on his knees and eyes resting on your face, searching for something—a sign you’re ready to listen. And despite the wounds you’re still tending to and the bandages on your skin from all of the venomous words he flung at you, your heart and mind are open and willing to take whatever he wants to give you.

It’s an odd feeling to know you’re still okay with this man and all of his thick walls and bloodied hands even after he’s shown you the part of him he keeps buried underneath sneers and a mask of disinterest. Before his temper was turn towards you, you never believed him capable of murder, of violence, of all of those plans he stays up late stringing together and comes home battered and bruised from trying to execute. Before you saw how easily his hands can destroy, he was simply Dabi: the man you found face down and drowning in his own trauma. Now there’s burn marks on your furniture and soul in the shape of his palms, and though you aren’t too sure where to take the next step, you’re still wanting to take it regardless.

Topaz flits from your lips and back up to your eyes, the crystals dripping from his snow hair causing him to look ethereal. A hesitant Dabi is a rare sight, but a beautiful one nonetheless. “Do you want—”

“You must be cold,” you blurt out, shocking the both of you.

He cocks an eyebrow and the smirk you’re all too familiar with returns to his cracked lips. You’re nervous, fluttery, nerves causing you to act more erratic and unsure of yourself. It’s cute, he thinks, cute how you go from so stubborn and closed off to a school girl trying to keep the butterflies in her stomach from crawling up her throat. It’s also a relief to see you get jumpy around him like you used to before he kissed you until your minds turned to mush and your fingers tangled with his hair and he pinned you down to your mattress, bodies tangled so tightly together he wasn’t sure where he began and where you ended. You still care. “Yeah, rain is pretty cold.”

You nod a little too eagerly. “I’ll make you some tea.”

“You go do that, doll.”

“And I can get you a blanket.”

“If you want.”

“And I can make you some food.”

“Sure. I could eat.”

“And I’ll… I’ll be back!”

“Don’t be gone too long.”

He watches you leave with a grin full of amusement and affection, and that does nothing to help ease the anxiety rolling around in your gut. You feel clumsy, skittish, for all of the wrong reasons. You want to kiss him. You want to shake the water out of his shaggy hair and pull on the ends of it while his lips attack your neck. You want to wrap your legs around his waist and feel his thighs flex underneath you as he tries to pull you as close as possible. You want to hear all of those breathless moans that tumble from his lips whenever you nibble on his collarbone. You want to lose yourself in him. Forget the anger, the hurt, the nights spent shivering because you didn’t have him next to you, the mornings spent drinking tea alone and making enough food for one person. He’s back, and you’re almost certain he was forgiven before the moon disappeared from the sky the night he left.

You can feel his eyes burning a hole in your back as you prep your kettle to boil some water, watching the way your hands shake as you turn the burner on and how you nearly drop the lid to it, and you know for a fact he has that same smirk on his lips. Why are you so damn nervous around him now? He’s buried himself in you too many times to count, has whispered the most obscene things in your ear, has seen you at your most raw and unfiltered, and now you’ve turned into a neurotic mess? Why is your stomach doing somersaults and why is your heart slamming itself in your ribcage and why does your throat feel too large for your neck?

Because this Dabi isn’t the Dabi who left. You know in the deepest parts of your guts, past the pain and the hesitance, whoever is sitting on your couch is not the man who broke your table. And even if there’s alcohol swimming in his veins and an ego in need of nursing, there’s something alarmingly self-aware twinkling in his sapphires, something that lets you know he knows. He knows he hurt you. He knows he wasn’t in the right. He knows he bit the only hand that was willing and wanting to feed him. He knows your knuckles still bare his teeth marks. He knows it’s going to take more than a simple fuck to make everything okay again. Because, for the first time, it isn’t going to be simple with you. It isn’t going to be as simple as him needing a bandage and you pulling out a first aid kit. It isn’t going to be as simple as him being angry at the world and you helping him get lost in the stars. And he’s okay with it. He’s okay reopening any wounds that didn’t heal quite right. He’s okay with spilling every single word sitting in his guts. He’s okay complicating himself if that means making things easy for you. Because, like almost everything else that has to do with you, you’re simply worth it.

He speaks up while you’re digging through your closet trying to find a blanket suitable for him, his voice laced with an odd mixture of hesitance and bemusement. “While you’re being all fidgety and shit, can I tell you the other new things I’ve been trying?”

“If you want.” You echo his previous words, careful to keep the anxiety out of your voice, as you prepare to make a meal for him.

Though you can’t see him, he smiles—a real smile for once. No sarcasm or scorn buried underneath taut muscle. A genuine smile with genuine happiness and genuine love. As scary as it is, it’s something he could get used to if he doesn’t keep himself on a leash, but he thinks he might be okay with that. “I looked at myself in the mirror the day after I left.”

That stops all of your tense movements in their tracks. Mirrors have been Dabi’s worst fear since the day you met him, because they contain his worst enemy. He’s avoided them, broken them, used the shards to puncture his heart and lacerate his lungs. He’s covered them, screamed at them, tried to erase them from his memory. To look at himself in the mirror is to face himself head-on, and that’s something you never thought you’d see. “How was that?”

He chuckles, deep and sorrowful, a sound that comes from the bittersweet emotions he’s destroyed his feet trying to run from. “I fucking hated it. I’m a real scary looking bastard, eh?”

“No.” The word tumbles out of your mouth with a resoluteness Dabi never thought himself worthy of. Your eyes are full of conviction once they meet with his, your jaw set in the way that lets him know there isn’t anything that will change your mind.

It’s adorable how deeply you think he deserves love even after he’s shown you how much it can hurt, and he can’t help but chuckle at how quickly your demeanor can change when it comes to matters like self-hate and forgiveness. “Did you lose your eyesight while I was gone? Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but I ain’t the prettiest face around here.”

You chew on your lip, careful that the words that leave your mouth help soothe the wounds on his mind. “I don’t care about your scars or your staples. I don’t care about the blood and gore. None of that matters.”

“Oh? Then what does? Because last I checked, society only likes pretty people with pretty quirks and pretty lives. Society doesn’t give a flying fuck about ugly bastards like me with ugly quirks and ugly lives.”

Dabi doesn’t expect you to answer, but you’ve always found ways to surprise him. The food on the kitchen counter is long forgotten about as you close the space between you two, your body just mere inches away from his. It’s the closest you’ve been since that night, and he has to fight the urge to pull you down on his lap. He doesn’t need to, apparently, because you’re practically sitting on it as your fingers trace over his brow bone with a touch so gentle, he could weep right then and there.

“What matters,” you whisper, “is how much your eyes shine when you laugh.” And then, your finger is tracing the corners of his mouth, ghosting over his lips. “What matters is how soft your lips are when they’re pressed on me.” And then, down the hollow of his throat down to his collarbone. “What matters is how you always smell like stale cigarettes and campfires.” And then, down his chest and right on the beginning of his abdomen. “What matters is how safe I feel when you’re holding me.” And finally, your palm rests right above his left peck, right over his hammering heart. “What matters is your passion, your drive, your determination. I don’t give a damn what society thinks about you. I think you’re beautiful, Touya.”

He knows it’s technically impossible but he swears he feels fireworks in his chest—bombastic, ribcage-breaking, heart-shattering, soul-cracking passion tearing his muscles apart until all that’s left is a body full of love. He loves you, and you think he’s beautiful, and he’s almost certain that, in this moment, everything is right in the world. “Can this beautiful man kiss you?” he breathes out, his eyes pleading with you to allow him to show you just how you’ve managed to piece him back together.

“Only if I can kiss him back,” you shyly reply.

If Dabi ever doubted the existence of angels, he knows now how terribly wrong he was, how utterly pessimistic and downright ignorant it was to doubt ethereal lives when he has one right here in his arms, sweet lips pressed against his, legs wrapped around his waist, arms pulling him closer and closer until your chests are touching and there’s not an inch of space between you two. Flashes of gold and thrones and feathers cross his mind as he breathes you in—all of the things he used to deny but now longs for. He wants to rule heaven with you, wants to make new worlds where other angels can’t follow and look down at him in disapproval, where he can’t hear their conspiratorial whispers of the saint who fell in love with the sinner, where he’s free to love you and worship you and allow his temporal hands roam your celestial body.

Dabi is a man who was born of corruption and gluttony and has fallen head over heels in love with purity and selflessness, and though he doubts he will ever think of himself worthy of such things, it won’t stop him from indulging. He is, after all, a bit greedy himself.

When his tongue brushes against yours and the taste of beer explodes in your mouth, you’re uncomfortably aware of the fact that only one of you is sober. You pull away, much to yours and his disappointment, but rest your forehead on his so you’re never too far from him. If you could, you would sew yourself to his skin, bury yourself in his bones and make a home out of his veins, play a prayer of love and devotion on loop so he knows that no matter how much heaven may shun sinners and all of their scars, you’re capable of a little rebellion every now and then.

But for now, while intoxication is a factor in a matter that should be dealt with a clear mind, you’ll settle for holding his hand.

“Dabi, you’re—”

“Drunk,” he finishes for you, a sort of sad smile on his face. “If it makes you feel better, I’m way more sober now.”

It’s a joke to help calm the guilt rolling around in your guts, you know it, and you brush your fingers against the corner of his mouth, wondering how long it’s been since he’s smiled and how often he might now. “Will you regret any of this in the morning?”

It stabs him right in the heart to hear such a question full of hesitance and apprehension asked so quietly, if he weren’t so dead set on catching every word that falls from your lips he might not have heard you. He feels the way your shoulders shake, can tell you’re just barely holding back tears, and he presses his hand to the back of your head to guide your face to the crook of his neck where you’re free to cry and hiccup however much you need. “I could never regret anything when it comes to you, baby. Why the tears?”

“I just…” A shaky sigh falls from your lips, your tears mixing with the droplets still clinging to his hair. “I thought I lost you before and now you’re back and I know technically you’re drunk but I know how sincere you are and it’s all just so—”

His fingers begin to massage circles into your shoulder blades, and he presses his lips to the side of your head, nose full of your scent and trying its best to burn it into his memory. “Babe.”

“Y-Yeah?” you hiccup.

“Fuckin’ breathe. It’s okay. It’s all okay. You didn’t lose me. I’m right here, baby, right fuckin’ here, and I’m not going anywhere. Not again. I fucked up, okay? I fucked up real bad and I know I did. I promise you, I’m not really drunk at all. I mean, I had a good buzz going on when I first showed up, but being here with you, talking with you, sobered me up real quick.”

And he sounds so genuine, so full of love and honesty, you can’t help but tangle your fingers in his hair, pull him so close you can feel his heartbeat against yours, bury your face right next to his jugular and commit mortality to memory. You cry until your eyes are almost swollen shut. You cry until your heart feels too large for your chest. You cry until your breath is a stuttering mess.

You cry for Dabi and all of the pain he’s carried around with him and no place to put it. You cry for Touya and all of the homes he’s lost and all of the times he was never enough. You cry for yourself and how deeply you love a man who only believes himself worthy of destruction. You cry for lost potential and empty promises of better tomorrows. You cry for broken furniture and shattered hearts because no one ever warned you love wasn’t easy. You cry and cry and cry until your voice is hoarse and the only thing you can taste is the salt cascading down your face.

And Dabi holds you through it all. His hands run up and down your back, gently rocking both of your bodies to a tune only he knows, his lips pressed against your head in hopes you can feel the adoration seeping out of his body. He allows you to unleash all of the emotions he’s stirred up in you. He catches every tear that falls from your eyes, thankful he’s unable to shed his own.

Once the world has stopped shifting and you’re able to steady yourself, he carries you to your bed without another word, a tender kiss against your forehead before he turns to leave.

“Where are you going?” you ask, barely managing to whisper.

He smiles down gently at you. “You left some food out. I was gonna put it away then crawl in bed.”

“Don’t care. Come to bed now.”

“Your wish is my command.”

With your face tucked away in his chest, your arms wrapped around his torso, and your legs tangled with his, Dabi falls into a peaceful sleep for the very first time since he learned that family will always be your first disappointment.

The fourth time you call Dabi by his name, he finally allows himself to drown in the emotions he’s spent his entire life learning to swim away from.

The sinner wakes up with angel feathers around his body, the spot where your body laid empty and cold but scent still clinging onto the sheets. He quickly finds himself in a familiar routine of glaring at the nosy sun peeking through curtains and violating his eyes, cursing his nocturnal nature and how much easier it is to be himself in front of the moon and stars. After contemplating if going back to sleep is worth it (it isn’t), he drags his body out of bed and into a warm shower. The smell of your shampoo is somewhere to be found in the leftover steam of your own shower, and he smiles to himself when he remembers where he’s at: home. And it isn’t a home where dishes are broken and voices crack and plead. It isn’t a home where fear sits in the living room and stress waits for him in the kitchen. It isn’t a home where he’s expected to be an adult with obligations without ever knowing what it’s like to be a child full of wonder.

It’s a home where angels sing in the kitchen as they cook breakfast while he tries to wash his sins away in the bathroom and that, he thinks, is the closest to perfection he will ever get.

He walks into the kitchen with a towel around his waist and his scars on full display—new ones angry and red, old ones melancholy and purple—and, for once, he isn’t afraid. He doesn't try to hide them under baggy clothes and jeering words. He allows your eyes to run over them and wince at the fresh ones and squint at the old ones, because he knows you aren’t disgusted by them, you don’t pity him, you accept them as they are—reminders of times where he strayed too close to the fire.

“Morning, baby,” he says around a yawn as he sits at your table.

You smile softly at him and how easy he finds it to be around you. “You’re really laying the ‘baby’ stuff on thick, huh?”

“I mean, you only let me call you a cockslut when you’re being one, and I don’t see you on your knees right now so…”

Flustered, you quickly turn back around to tend to the salmon and eggs you’ve been cooking, probably adding far too much salt but trying to not pay attention to how much your hands are shaking. This causes Dabi to laugh—gentle, deep, melodic in a sense, carefree and raspy. “Oh, so you think you’re Mr. Funny Man, hm?” you challenge, though you don’t dare face him.

“I think I’m downright hilarious, baby.”

“Well, that makes one of us.”

“Whatever you say, baby.”

You swat a tea towel at him, which he quickly dodges with a grin, and you roll your eyes. “You aren’t giving up any time soon, are you?”

“Do I ever? Baby.”

“Point taken.”

Breakfast is eaten in comfortable silence—Dabi radiating a happiness you never thought possible, you soaking it all in with a sense of relief. He takes his time as he eats, as if he’s savoring every flavor crawling around his tongue, contemplative as his teeth shred his food to tiny pieces. You admire the sight of his furrowed brow and bright eyes as you sip on your tea, unsure of what to say and worried what you do want to say will scare him away. So rather than choke on the words sitting in the back of your throat, you take this opportunity to inspect his body. After all, it isn’t every day Dabi is comfortably shirtless, especially in the sun’s rays where all of his flaws are visible for anyone and everyone to see.

You spot the newer burns sitting close to his hips, not quite as wrathful as the older ones resting on his chest, but still containing a torment you don’t think you’ll ever understand firsthand (and you doubt he’d want you to). When he first began showing up at your doorstep and all you knew about him was he looked different than anyone else you knew, you used to tell yourself stories about his scars—how he got them, how painful they were, which ones are newer than the others, which ones were self-inflicted and which ones were done by a resentful hand, how they all come together for form a man who’s become a sort of expert when dealing with macabre things.

If it bothers him to have your attention so focused on things he tries so hard to hide, he’s never said anything about it. When he first noticed how fixated you were on his scars, he cupped your chin and tilted your head up, forcing you to look at his sapphires full of curiosity and hesitance.

“Little distracted there, doll,” he observed.

“Do they hurt?”

He blinked, unsure of what to make of your harmless tone. “Not really. If I get new ones, they hurt like a motherfucker, but I get used to it after a few days.”

“Are they hard to take care of?”

“No. I’ve been taking care of them for a while now so it’s not a big deal.”

Your fingers gently traced the staples on his collarbone, careful to not pluck at any, not a hint of disgust to be found on your angelic face. “Can you teach me how?”

He jolted back and immediately guarded himself behind walls high enough to reach the heavens. Suspicion clouded his eyes, laced through his tone and made his muscles more rigid. “Why?”

“So I can help you take care of them,” you replied, as if everything were really that simple, and Dabi swore he saw a flash of angel wings fluttering on your back.

Back in the present, Dabi watches your eyes fill with nostalgia, a small smile on your face as your fingers trace the rim of your mug. He thinks he can stare at you all day if you would allow him to. He thinks he could spend the rest of forever memorizing all of the expressions you make as you try to dissect mortality and why seraphic beings are so fascinated with it. He knows that eventually, sacrifices will have to be made and one of you will lose themself serving a god who doesn’t like those in love with vengeance while the other one tries to pluck their own eyes out so they may be blind to how much suffering they’ve caused. But, for now, he’s happy being the fool in love who flew too close to the sun.

“Little distracted there, baby,” he chuckles, gathering up your dishes and placing them in the sink. “Am I just that handsome?”

“You never did teach me how to help take care of them,” you reply with a somber tone.

The mug he’s holding nearly slips out of his hand when your words reach his ears. So you really were thinking about morality and all of its ugliness. He tries his hardest to keep his voice light, to not show how much he envies angels and how easy ignorance is for them. “They aren’t yours to take care of.”

“No, but I’d like to help.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Because I love you. There is it again, that goddamn sentence that always manages to stick itself to the roof of your mouth. You’re choking on it, trying to allow oxygen to flow through lungs that are turning inside out because you can’t seem to find the courage to say you love a sinner in a world that shuns blood and fire. Acid fills your throat as your lips try to form the words burning at your gums. I love you, I love you, I love you. Why is it so hard to say? Why is love such a scary thing even though it presents itself as a cure for everything wrong in the world? Why does your kitchen seem smaller than before? Why are there black spots dancing in front of your eyes? Why is Dabi so afraid of anything he can’t burn and why are you afraid of giving him a reason to leave?

“Because…?” he prompts you, oblivious to your inner turmoil.

You try to flash an easy smile at him, though you fear it may look strangled. “Because I don’t want you to bleed everywhere if you miss a spot.”

That certainly isn’t the answer he was expecting given the way a chuckle stutters out of his throat, but he finds himself laughing until he’s nearly bent at the waist and struggling to catch his breath. It’s a beautiful sound, one full of long-lost joy and too many cigarettes smoked under a full moon, one that cups your heart and kisses it tenderly. “Well, I don’t want to ruin any more furniture,” he hums. “Better teach ya’ the secrets to my staples and how to make this mug oh-so pretty.”

After dishes have been washed and food has been stored away, you usher Dabi back to the bathroom and pull out the first aid kit you’ve learned to keep handy. He guides you with a firm hand and soft voice, tells you how to properly disinfect the burns and where to place the staples so they hold everything together, teaches you how to keep your fingers from shaking and how to not wince whenever metal punctures flesh. Keeping someone from falling apart shouldn’t feel so intimate, but with every staple placed into taut skin a jolt of something warm, something precious, something so fragile you’re afraid if you acknowledge it it’ll fall apart, spreads across your chest and causes sunlight to pour out of your hands.

With every brush of your fingers, the sinner is slowly learning to admire sunrises and how they highlight all of the things he tries to hide in the night. It’s not an easy task, and he struggles to fight the urge to find solace in galaxies littered across the sky, but if it means he can admire your face under the rays then he’ll bear through it all. You’re so close to him—the closest you’ve been in weeks. He can see every eyelash, every pore, every bit of stardust swimming under your skin and all of the oceans running through your veins. His body might contain destruction, but yours contains creation—the secrets to all of the universes and how to create life out of pure love. And maybe it’s a bit of an oxymoron to have such opposing things crash together, but Dabi is not a simple man and he doesn’t like simple things.

“Can I tell you the other new things I’ve been trying?” he asks timidly.

You look up in a pair of frightened sapphires and nod slowly, shyly. “Yes.”

Long, slender fingers stop your hand from placing another staple into him, and rough lips kiss all of the suns in your palms. His voice shakes when he speaks, nearly as much as his soul does, but he still forces the words out. “I’ve been trying out this...thing. It’s pretty fuckin’ scary. To be honest, I never thought I’d try it. And to be even more honest, I thought it was too late for me to try it. I thought it came with an expiration date, y’know? Like those credit card offers you get in the mail that say some bullshit like, ‘This offer is only good for the next two weeks! Sign up now!’ But recently, I learned that now is the perfect time to try it.”

“And what is it?”

The air is filled with anticipation, with words that have sat in throats for far too long, with feelings that have been locked away in chests, with pasts that have refused to die, with futures that may never live, with closets overfilling with skeletons. It’s suffocating, terrifying, absolutely world-shattering. But with your gift of creation, Dabi can destroy as much as he wants without worrying about leaving any new nasty scars on planets. He’s free to be himself, to unleash as much fire as he wants, and you’ll be right behind him, sweeping up ashes and leaving life in their wake.

“Love.”

Once the word drips from his tongue and lands right on your chest, the world stops turning. Stars can no longer be found and the moon buried itself in a black hole and oceans stop their waves. Angels have stopped fussing about forgiveness and gods are no longer worried about who deserves to be smited next. The entire universe and beyond has ceased to expand because all that matters in this moment is how Dabi’s heart is no longer caged and you’re no longer afraid to play with fire.

Tears fill your eyes before you can stop them, and Dabi brushes his thumb across your eyelashes. “You love me.” It isn’t a question, and it certainly doesn’t need an answer, but he offers you one anyway.

“I love you, and I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to realize.”

If the sinner didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought he heard the angels begin to sing. But trivial things like sins and purity, heaven and hell, angels and demons, don’t matter because none of them could ever feel as freeing as loving you. He’s no longer bound by the past and all of its bloodshed, and he thinks it’s okay to forget it sometimes. His fingers shake as they brush tears away you didn’t even know you have shed, careful to not taint your divine skin with his infernal hands, a shy sort of smile on your lips as you pull his body closer to yours. He protests that you’ll get blood on your clothes, and you shush him by telling him you’ve always been fascinated with mortals anyway, and neither of you are sure who initiated it but your lips are slotting together and you remember why heaven never felt like home.

Before you could get lost in how good it feels to not have to worry about serving a vengeful god, Dabi picks you up and carries you to your bedroom, chest flush against yours and hearts beating in sync. He’s gentle as he lays you on your bed, careful to not disturb your wings and all of the feathers falling from your back. His fingers graze your thighs, and for a moment he fears he may be cast down to the deepest pits of hell before he’s able to worship you the way you deserve. But then, you pull his face down to yours and kiss him as if he hasn’t spent his entire life in search of his next big sin and, suddenly, hell is worth being dragged through as long as it means he gets to hold your hand.

“I love you,” he whispers against your lips. “I love you, I love you, I fucking love you, angel.”

Shaky fingers trace his jawline as if he were going to crumble to desk any second. “I love you, too. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay. Everything is okay.”

He didn’t even realize he had blood droplets welling in his eyes until you gently wiped them away, fingertips glistening with newly formed rubies and trembling as you try to get rid of any evidence of sadness. Rather than trying to voice all of the emotions crawling up his throat, he kisses the wet pads of your digits, a silent thank you for teaching him that even the most corrupt of souls can be saved. Cracked lips trace over soft skin, and though it serves as a reminder of the different worlds you serve, the villain can’t help but lose himself in all of the pretty little noises falling from your mouth. It’s hypnotizing how you can make something as simple as a few breathy moans sound like the same harps in the clouds he’s spent his entire life trying to run away from. He’s barely taken your shirt and pants off and you’re already heaving underneath him—the visual reassurance he needed to know that you’ve been waiting for this moment just as eagerly as he had. And right as he lowers his head towards your thighs to provide the relief you’ve both needed, you stop him short, trembling hand finding purchase in his snowy locks.

“Angel…?” Sapphires full of questions scan your face, but he waits for you to speak, waits for your explanation, waits for you. He’s spent his entire life waiting for someone—something—like you, what’s a few more seconds?

You look hesitant—eyes darting around the room, incisors digging into your lower lip, heart thumping in the hollow in your throat—and, if Dabi didn’t know any better, scared. “I...uh...I’m unprepared.”

He blinks up at you. “I’m not following. What do you mean ‘unprepared’? No condoms? I’m fairly certain I’ve fried all of my swimmers so there’s a very small chance you’ll get knocked up, and I promise you no one has touched me in years so there’s no risk of any infections. There’s always Plan B too if I still have a few stubborn lil’ guys desperate to create a crotch goblin and—”

“No,” you cut him off, the heels of your hands digging into your eyes. “I haven’t...y’know...taken care of things down south in a while…”

A laugh bubbles up his throat once he realizes what your implications are. You haven’t shaved. He’s covered in nightmarish scars and staples, lanky body trying to destroy itself every second he’s alive, and you’re worried about some body hair? It almost pains him to think that you’re so self-conscious of something so miniscule, so human, so mundane it doesn’t even deserve a second thought. Who turned you away for keeping one of your temporal traits? Who shunned you for wanting to be mortal?

“Angel,” he breathes between chuckles, his knuckles brushing against your cheek and pulling your hands away from your face. “Have you looked at me at all? Like, really looked at me?”

You meekly nod.

“Then you’ll know that I’m the last person to give a fuck about some hair. Hell, I can’t even grow my own body hair because it’s all burned to shit. Your body hair is a part of you, therefore, I love it. I don’t care if you grow it, shave it, wax it, whatever. That’s your choice. So don’t be so ashamed of it, yeah? If you can look past my fuckin’ terrifying scars, I can look past a few hairs, okay?”

Rough fingers trace a soft cheek, and you find yourself nodding again, spreading your legs and allowing him access to the place he craves to be most. You’re completely and utterly intoxicating looking down at him through unshed crystals, fingers playing with the strands of his hairs while he tries to memorize how you look in this exact moment because he’s sure this is the closest to heaven he’ll ever get. He’s tender as he traces your soaking slit with his calloused digit, careful to not rush you nor taint you with the impermanence of humanity. A bit of stardust falls out of your mouth when you moan out his name, and he’s disappointed in himself for not bringing a mason jar so he may keep all of your celestial beauty on a shelf as a reminder that not everything is as ugly as he is. Still, he considers himself the luckiest mortal to ever grace this earth to see you wriggling underneath him, see how your mouth goes slack when his finger brushes against your swollen clit, hear how soft your pleas for more are, to know that even the holiest of angels are capable of a little sin.

“What’s that, baby?” he coos down at you, fingers never leaving the apex of your thighs.

The mewl you let out is cut short by a whimper as he drags his fingers down your fluttering hole, gathering up all of your juices and licking them clean, sapphires never leaving your face. It’s the most erotic thing you’ve been blessed enough to see, so fucking sexy and world-shattering as he brings his hand down to grind his palm against your throbbing heat. Lowering his body over yours, he nips at the sensitive shell of your ear, licking and sucking on the afflicted skin until you’re bucking your hips against his hand.

“S’matter, sweetheart?” he asks with feigned sympathy. “Can’t handle a little teasing?”

But, oh god, if only you knew how he’s barely hanging on. This last shred of control he’s somehow maintained is about to burst at the seams, tear his world to shreds until all he knows is you and all of your feathers and glittering halo. He’s a mere mortal who somehow found a way to break into heaven, and he’s about to lose himself amongst all of the clouds if he lets go. He can’t, not yet, not when he’s still unsure if you love him as much as he needs you, not when he’s afraid of you regretting having an affair with ephemeral beings. You deserve better than him, he’s sure of it, but you’re looking up at him with eyes full of stars and wonder and he can’t stop himself from breaking down his own walls he’s spent a lifetime building up.

Trembling hands grab at his neck, his hair, anything they can grasp to pull him closer, closer, closer. You want him, you need him, all of him, every last scar, every little staple, every tear he had shed before crying became impossible, every blood-curdling scream that has left his throat, every word that has dripped from his tongue, every insecurity that haunts his heart, everything. You need Dabi, you need Touya Todoroki, you need the man you found facedown in an alleyway, you need the man who shattered your soul and furniture, you need the man who came back and pieced them both back together. You need him, and he’s never been more sure of it than in this moment.

“I don’t think you’ll ever realize how beautiful you are,” he whispers, breath hot against your cool skin.

But before you can reply, his tongue is running along your folds and his hands are intensely gripping your hips and, oh my god, you swear you see stars on your ceiling. He drags his tongue across your pussy like a starved man, moaning and panting in sync with every noise that falls from your chest, determined to make you cum, desperate to earn every ounce of praise you’ve ever given him. Sapphires clouded with lust and love gaze up at you as a hot mouth toys with your desire, and you’re certain this is what it’s like to be worshiped in the best way possible. You brush your thumb against his cheek, a signal that he’s so good, the best possible devotee and all of his acts of worship won’t go in vain.

“F-F-Fuck,” you mewl, and earn a groan from him in return, the verberations hitting your pussy and causing supernovas to explode behind your eyes. “Oh, please, just like that! You’re so good, Dabi, so fucking good!”

His index finger replaces his tongue, languid strokes against your sopping heat as he tries to catch his breath. “Goddammit, you’re perfect.” His voice is somewhere between a moan and a whine, syllables catching in his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing as he attempts to swallow down all of the words flooding his esophagus. “You’re so fucking perfect for me and I’m so in love with you it hurts.” He’s in awe, completely and utterly in shock that such an innocent creature—one with stars in their skin and oceans in their veins and all of the secrets to love and life trapped between their flower-filled lungs—can look at him with such…adoration. Passion, trust, tenderness, bliss—they’re all there, swimming in your irises, dancing across your face, beating in your chest.

You love him, you love him, you love him.

And it isn’t out of pity. He isn’t some sick stray dog you found and nursed back to health and fell in love with along the way. You love him as if you had no other choice to, as if your heart would explode without him, as if the world would stop turning if he left. And, god, does he love you. He loves you like Icarus loved the sun—dangerously, self-destructive and self-aware, knowing he’ll never be worthy but still determined to be close with you at least once during this lifetime.

“I love you,” he murmurs again, fingers finding your cunt and mouth attaching itself to your clit again.

He’s a starved animal, deprived of love and selfishly taking as much as he can now that he’s in a home full of it. But there’s not a damn thing selfish about the way he loves you, about the way he circles his tongue around your clit, about the way hs dips his slender fingers into your throbbing heat and grazes your gummy walls, about how his other hand is touching as much of your soft skin as he can—your breasts, your nipples, your hips, the swell of your ass, your legs, just everything, everything, everything, so he knows what dedication feels like.

Bony hips rut against your mattress in a desperate search for some form of relief, but he can’t stop himself from devouring every little piece of you until your halo falls off and you’re free from the clutches of a cruel god. You were never truly happy amongst the clouds, were you? Always forced to be something you weren’t, forced to shun anyone who was less than perfect, forced to convert anyone who didn’t believe.

But now, in this moment, with the very same face you were taught to fear is buried between your legs, when you’re stripped down to the bone and all of your galaxies are setting the room alight, when your soul is naked and free to be handled by even the most scarred of hands… You’ve never felt more free.

Your fingers pull on his wintry locks in an attempt to bring him closer to you, closer to heaven and all of its promises of healing. “I—” Dabi cuts your whines off by flattening his tongue against your clit, sucking on the sensitive bundle of nerves and pumping his fingers faster. “F-Fuck…! I’m so close! Wan’ cum, please, wan’ cum so badly!”

You’re barely hanging on. Flashes of gold dance in front of your eyes and you’re almost certain it’s a part of your halo falling, but who needs angels when the sinner right between your legs is the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen? He’s quivering—so overwhelmed with the trust you’ve given a man with bloodied hands to not taint your precious body that he can’t help but try to give you every ounce of reassurance that yes, he is trustworthy! He’s worthy! Even with scarlet stains on ivory skin and graveyards full of regrets, he’s been deemed worthy of one of heaven’s most pure angels.

The fifth time you call Dabi by his name, he’s ready to completely throw away his previous life in favor of everything holy and pure.

Your thighs are shaking around his head, hands tangling themselves in his hair and pulling for dear life, and he knows you’re so, so close to that final push that will permanently brand you a fellow sinner.

“Tell me how much you need it, angel,” he all but pleads against your pussy, the pace of his fingers becoming faster and sloppy, desperate, haphazard circles being drawn into your clit and hungry teeth nipping at your flesh. “Tell me how much you need me. Oh my fucking god, baby, please tell me how much you need it. I need to hear it. I need it, I need you.”

“Touya, I need you,” you cry out. It’s a demand—give me all of you and let me love every piece. It’s a plea—love me as much as I love you and don’t ever leave my side. It’s a promise—I’ll wash every wound for you if it means I get to be close to you. It’s everything Dabi could have ever wished for and more—an angel finally allowing themself to be free of their divine restraints in order to love the very same thing that might kill them. “Oh, fuck, I need you. I need you, I need you, I need you.”

You love him, you love him, you love him.

His ears are filled with your prayers and his mouth is full of your ambrosia and his chest is full of all of the suns you’ve saved for him, and, for a moment, he thinks he’d be okay if he died right now. Your whimpers are intoxicating, the very same harm that tempts every sinner with a tainted soul. The pleasure that has been rumbling and knotting deep within your gut finally snaps with a few licks to your clit and his knuckles brushing against your slick walls, and you’re sure that you’ve officially lost your heavenly status. It’s worth it. It’s all worth seeing Dabi looking up at you with his hypnotizing topazes and smile that would make God himself weep.

Unsteady hands grab at his sharp face, heavenly fingers swiping away the rubies that have begun to cascade down his cheeks and splash on the bed sheets, a wobbly smile on cracked lips.

“You’re crying,” you observe, tender as you try to pull him close to you. “Are you okay?”

But rather than answer you, Dabi takes both of your wrists in one of his hands and delicately pins them over your head, his other hand tracing your body with feather-light touches. He’s measured with his ministrations, hesitant, careful to keep all of the flaws trapped in his bones away from you and all of the galaxies in yours.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” The rubies are still falling from his topazes and all you can think of is how terribly wrong he is because he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Not the clouds in the sky, not the other angels fleeting around carelessly, not the supernovas you see every night, not the sunrises you see every morning. Nothing could measure up to how painfully beautiful it is watching Dabi finally accepting the love you’ve been trying to offer him for what feels like a lifetime.

“You’re gorgeous,” you manage to reply, voice and heart wobbly. “You’re handsome and beautiful and—”

Rough lips slotting against yours cuts you off, calloused fingers cupping your face, and when he finally releases his hold on you, you wrap your arms around his neck. He’s shaking like a lost child, salty tears and copper mixing with your hungry kisses and clashing against greedy tongues. Your chests heave together as sobs wrack both of your bodies, so desperate to finally be together after heaven was so determined to keep you separated. Fumbling hands rip the towel that clung to his hips off, and he sinks himself into you, his hips stuttering with every centimeter he pushes through.

The sixth time you call Dabi by his name, he understands why generations of men have gone to war to feel a fraction of what he’s drowning in—earth-shattering, skin-searing, sanity-robbing fulfillment.

Eyes rolling to the back of your head, stars exploding under your skin, you dig your fingernails into his back as he snaps his hips against yours. He’s lost in you and all of your healing touches, all of the prayers echoing in your chest, all of the feathers falling down your back and glitter falling down your face. He’s completely and utterly in love with the saint underneath him, and he silently vows to protect you until his dying breath.

“A-Angel,” he groans, his pace sloppy as he tries to chase the high only you can provide him. “Oh, f-fuck, you feel so fucking good. You’re so good to me. So goddamn perfect. I love you so fucking much. Please, don’t leave me.”

Somehow, some way, you manage to find your voice and sob, “I love you, Touya, love you more than anything! ‘M not going anywhere, I promise.”

The seventh time you call Dabi by his name, he allows the past to die and begins to set up a home for the future.

His hips stutter when the sound of his name falls on his ears, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck to bring your chest flush against his. “Say it again,” he pleads. “Say my name again. Just like that, baby, say it again.”

“Touya!”

The eighth time you call Dabi by his name, he swears he sees a flash of golden gates.

He kisses the hollow of your throat, watching the way your pulse skyrockets at his touch. “Again.”

“Touya!”

The ninth time you call Dabi by his name, he starts to feel galaxies form under his own skin, and it’s then he knows his sins have been forgiven.

He’s drunk on purity and innocence and forgiveness—all of the things he’s been denied his entire life but has found waiting for him in your ribcage. “Again.”

“Touya!”

And though he knows he’s just a greedy man who was lucky enough to catch the attention of God's greatest servant, he thinks he might be able to sit in heaven with you. He hopes, for just a moment, he might be able to see all of the golden gates and hear all of the harps that have haunted his dreams. His soul is still tainted with broken promises and broken families, but laying right underneath him, with the secret to healing and the key to salvation in their palm, is the very definition of love and everything right in the world.

And hovering right above you, with all of his passion and determination, with all of his flaws put on display for anyone to scrutinize, is a reminder of how beautiful and brave it is to be human in a world that only praises heavens. His cock brushes against your cervix, his lips kiss every inch of skin they can touch, his hands are buried in his hair, his voice is rough with desire and need, and nothing in heaven could ever be as breath-taking as Touya Todoroki.

“Oh my fucking god,” he moans against your skin. “I love you, angel. I need you.”

Lost in love and all of its intricacies, you whine and buck your hips up in sync with his, grinding your clit against his pelvis and sobbing at the galaxies you both are creating. Your own heaven to get lost in, where gods can’t spy and angels can’t judge. Where forgiveness is commonplace and greed is acceptable. Where family is who you choose it to be and love isn’t a tool for manipulation. Where everything is simple and pure and right.

And although Dabi is not a simple man and does not like simple things, Touya is learning that simplicity holds its own beauty worthy of loving.

The tenth time you call Dabi by his name, he’s ready to allow himself to be loved without any attachments, any suspicions, any ill will—the past, along with Dabi, have finally laid to rest.

“I love you, Touya,” you cry out, and he’s sure that it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. “I love you so much!”

You’re close to coming undone—he can feel how much your pussy is clamping down on him and how your voice becomes more and more distorted by hiccups and sobs. He just needs a little more, just a little more to add the finishing touches to your heaven and build a throne out of gold. Just a little more, just so he can relish in how sweet forgiveness tastes and how good it feels to no longer bear the burden of corruption.

“I love you too,” he whispers into your hair. “I love you more than anything in this world.”

His thrusts are becoming sloppier and sloppier with each passing minute, and he knows he’s only a few pumps away from spilling over. Cupping your face with his hands, he uses his thumb to brush away the tears streaming down your cheek and slots his lips against yours in a moment of heated passion.

“Cum, angel, cum for me,” he pleads, angling his cock brushes against scared places in you. “Cum for me, cum with me, just cum, baby, cum.”

Who would’ve known the creation of a new heaven could feel so sinful? Clutching his body to yours as much as you can, you cry out his name followed by a string of curses as your pussy milks him for every last drop he has. His bliss follows right after yours, and he bites down on your shoulder to keep himself from groaning too loudly so as to not drown out your melodic cries. Visions of gold and white and purity flash before his eyes as cock throbs inside of you.

His body goes limp on top of yours, breath shaky and bloody stars falling from his eyes. He thinks he can feel your fingers running through his hair, but he’s so high on simplicity and absolution he can’t seem to feel anything except your heart beating against his. Tender lips press against his sweaty temple, and he buries his face deeper into the crook of your neck.

“‘M sorry,” he mumbles after a beat of silence. “For everything. I should’ve realized sooner. I…I should’ve been stronger.”

Delicately, you bring his face out of its hiding space to press your forehead against yours, examining the regret and hesitance dancing inside sapphire. “All that matters,” you whisper “is that you did realize. I’ll be your strength if you’re feeling weak. I’ll be your shoulder to cry on. There’s nothing to worry about. All is forgiven.”

And for the very first time in his life, Touya no longer feels like a sinner forced to bear the wrongdoings of a greedy man. He no longer feels like the product of selfishness and vanity gone awry. He no longer feels like a family secret buried in the backyard never to be spoken of or acknowledged.

Touya Todoroki feels like a man with his entire life ahead of him, an angel by his side and a heaven to come home to, and that, he thinks, is more than anyone with a past such as his can hope for.

#❀.mine #touya todoroki x reader #dabi x reader #touya x reader #todoroki x reader #touya todoroki smut #touya todoroki x you #toya todoroki x reader #toya todoroki x you #toya todoroki smut #dabi smut

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profoundbondfanfic · 1 day

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Broken (The Worst is Over Now)

Broken (The Worst is Over Now) by TrenchCoat_Paradigm Rating: Teen and Up Word Count: 45k

Dean almost couldn’t believe it when he saw that huddled body swaddled in a tan trenchcoat sitting in the middle of the dungeon floor. Cas was back. After months of searching, digging through the archives to find a way to drag his ass out of the Empty, they had finally done it. But something was wrong. This wasn’t the Castiel that smiled up at him with a tearful goodbye after revealing his true happiest moment. This was a wild, snarling beast of a man, warped and twisted, feral thanks to the damage of the Empty. A man who would probably rip out Dean’s throat rather than confess his love. Even when Dean breaks through that wild exterior, he discovers that Castiel still thinks he’s trapped in the hell that is the Empty. That nothing around him is real. Dean just has to get through to him.

One thing I will never take for granted is that even almost four years after our show ended, we’re still getting fic. And fix it fic, at that. Four years after the end of Supernatural, and we’re still unsatisfied, and willing to write our own ending, as our beloved Misha Collins told us to do when the show ended.

Broken (The Worst is Over Now) is another one of those amazing fix-it fics that could easily stand in as a satisfying conclusion to the show, the one we didn’t get in canon. When I tell you I would have ate up an entire season of this idea, I’m not kidding. Dean is a wreck after losing Cas and using all his energy to find a way to bring him home, until his resources run out, along with his will to keep going. Instead, he’s giving in to his depression, until Sam calls in reinforcements.

Rowena. Up from hell with a spell in hand, once that successfully yanks Cas out of the Empty—only Cas thinks none of it is real, that it’s just another nasty trick being played on him by the Empty, another way to torture him, and break his spirit the same way it's been doing since his confession. What results is ultimately a story about Dean’s love, and how he comes to terms with this new version of Cas and what it takes to convince him they really are, in fact, what’s real. This is a great fic that had me laughing and in tears at various points, and if that isn’t the mark of a good fic, I don’t know what is. Add in our favorite love story and we’ll consider this one a winner.

#destiel #fic rec #teen and up #30k to 50k #canon verse #bunker #fix it #angst with a happy ending #hurt and comfort #bed sharing #human!castiel #author: TrenchCoat_Paradigm #Broken (The Worst is Over Now)

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douglysium · 21 hours

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In Defense of Smirke's 14

This is an exerbt from a larger article discussing episode 13 of TMAGP. So if you want to understand the full context you can do so here- https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_bKOpD_Ffic1yTDNEJGb2UlN2oUnSQn5lLKKnDCtMU/edit#heading=h.uwedvf2nuk5c

Why Smirke’s 14?

I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.

A mistake that I think a lot of fans make is that they assume the Entities sort of invented fear or are the reason fear exists when this doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, The Extinction and The Flesh are not the reason the fear of global warming / advancing technology and being butchered / consumed / disfigured exist. They merely feed on, and sometimes exacerbate in specific target people, already existing fears and concerns. In MAG 200 we get “Then came minds that knew it differently. They grew slowly, over the millennia; inch by inch they found new things to dread. The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself. And as they grew to know what it is that they saw, to give it names, and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much. And as they learned to know their friends and kin, so too did they learn to fear the unknown figure, the coming of the stranger, and the silence when they were alone. And when they found fire, that bright ignition of home and hope and progress, the thing that was fear gorged itself on a newfound terror once again.” This fits in line with what we know about the Entities. Generally speaking, what usually happens is once a fear of something becomes great or common enough on a mass scale an Entity will emerge to feed on it. As I’ve mentioned before, these Entities are all parts of a bigger whole but it helps to think of them as specialists. Each Entity specializes in tracking down and consuming specific types of fear, sort of like how different parts of our body have different purposes and can be made out of different tissues and materials for different reasons. Saying the Entities are the only reason various fears exist would be like saying the only reason animals have meat is for carnivores to eat them. In reality, animals started developing various tissues and meats before certain creatures evolved to take advantage of the resource.

The closest we get to the idea that one or more Entities created a fear from scratch is “Once upon a time there was fear. Old fear. Primal fear. A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing. And that fear was nothing. Went nowhere. Knew not what it was. Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more. And to those things that hurried through the grass, that shivered through the night in their burrows and their caves, because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes, they fed the fear. It was blunt and it was simple, but still it was solid enough to satisfy. And the thing that was fear was sated and content.” However, while some parts of this are ambiguous, such as whether or not the fears were born attached to the TMA universe, the way it’s phrased makes it sound like what most likely happened is the fear of being hunted caused the first ever Entity (The Hunt) to come into existence. This line says that the primal fear “went nowhere.” It would have gone nowhere because nothing was feeding on it but “Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered.” Suddenly an Entity manifests from or because of that fear and begins to hunger it. Once again, even in the beginning, the cause and effects are existing fears birthing new Entities.

It’s also important to mention that the Entities couldn’t always manifest in the physical world. It is stated “And as the things that were fear hovered at the edge of the world, the flowing horror of these minds nourished them, swelling some and withering others, pushing and pulling the shattered, swirling mass of terror into ever newer and undiscovered forms. And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return. Minds that saw the faces of the things that were fear, and were compelled as much as they were repulsed. Whether or not they knew what it was they did, they called out. And they were answered. Time is different for fear, and it cannot be said exactly who was the first to open themselves and be filled with the power of terror. A hermit, huddled in a pitch black cave through winter, who emerged and brought the depth of night with him wherever he trod. A pestilent chieftain who found her breath sloughed from her body and rotted whatever it touched. A warrior driven from their village, who found their face as smooth and shifting as the sands of their home. Which came first does not matter, the unseen gap was bridged, and the thin veil between the world that was and the things that were fear had been torn, ever so slightly. And with this tear, they grew stronger, bolder, pouring themselves into the world and creating monsters. Long things that wore you like a suit, smiling things that stripped you from your bones, unseen things that watched and watched and watched and never left you. And with each new creation, each new servant, the Fears reached further and fed the things that made them. And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.”

The Protocol universe seems quite similar to the TMA universe in that it closely parallels ours in many ways. Many of the cultures that exist in our universe exist there, such as the UK and various countries to name a few, and many of the common fears seem like our own. Even if the Entities are recent additions to the Protocol universe a lot of the fears that gave birth to, and sustained, them would presumably still exist. The fear of being butchered for The Flesh, knowledge and being watched for The Eye, the unknown for The Stranger, violence for the Slaughter. etc.. These aren’t completely alien and distinct cultures or worlds here but places that closely mirror or resemble our own. So a lot of the fears would be the same which would mean basically all of the sustenance for the existing Entities would still be there.

While this does address the various categories this does not address Smirke’s 14 specifically, so let’s talk about that. I’ve seen a lot of people under the impression that Smirke somehow caused the Entities to organize themselves into the various categories we see characters throughout the series using but I think this gets the cause and effect of the Entities backwards once again. Smirke is only one guy and not only is he just one person but a majority of the people didn’t know the Entities existed, much less anything about Smirke’s categories. There weren’t a lot of statements were a victim got jumped by say a creeping figure in the dark and surmised “ah this must be related to the ghost that attacked Jan last week as a manifestation of The Dark.” To most people most supernatural events would be brushed off as delusions and the ones that weren’t wouldn’t usually be immediately assumed to be related without due cause. Even in the Post-Change world there were plenty of victims who seemed unaware of the full scope of the Entities and Smirke’s categories. At best Smirke’s categories would affect the manifestations directed at people who were aware of them but most people are not fully aware of these categories. So overall Smirke’s categories would have been but a drop in the metaphorical ocean that is collective fear.

Smirke made the categories based on patterns and behaviors he had noticed in the Entities and their manifestations. Some manifestations seem attracted to the same kind of emotions, or others clash because sometimes they are fighting in an attempt to bring out two often contradictory emotions. The weird spider people are more likely to work together with other weird spider people but they are more likely to fight the weird destructive burning people. So on and so forth.

For a clearer example of what I mean I would point to the various artifact books. The so-called leitners. The leitners didn’t just start popping into existence so that Jurgen Leitner could collect them. Rather, they already existed which prompted Jurgen to look for them and store them in his library before it was subsequently attacked and destroyed. The Entities did not change their entire general behavior on a global scale because one person found a book, Leitner just wrote his name in existing books. Likewise, what Smirke was at least trying to do was note already existing behaviors and manifestations and find commonalities between them. It wouldn’t be super different in concept than any other of the numerous pattern based categories humans make. For example, we divide animals into things like fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.. These categories are usually based on shared traits between these animals but even they are not perfect categories or little boxes. Every mammal gives live birth… until it’s a platypus. How we divide up animals are just made up human concepts to note various patterns and differences. You could also use colors as an example like Gerard does, we assign names and categories to various colors, we even have things like primary, secondary, and complimentary colors, but in reality all colors are just all pieces of a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves.

Smirke also mentions weird dreams in MAG 138 (The Architecture of Fear) when he says “Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man, long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange, far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee-deep in pig’s blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any “secret” book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of some sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channeled. Harnessed. So yes, hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals.” Which might imply one or more Powers were trying to communicate with him directly.

Jon does make a point that Smirke’s system is not flawless and it is often subjective as he notes in MAG 183 (Monument) in response to Martin saying he shouldn’t have a domain because he’s not an Avatar “It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and, well, I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.” Jon also mentions that the domain that appears in the episode is “Dead? Yes. Very much so. This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering.”

However in the next episode, MAG 184 (Like Ants) Jon says “The whole place would collapse and then, without The Corruption’s influence, I think The Buried would flow in to fill the gap.” to which Martin retorts “I thought you said Smirke’s Fourteen was a load of bull?” before Jon explains “I said it was limited, and draws artificial borders, but it does have its use when it comes to conceptualising these things. Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’d be left somewhat… entombed.” This fits in with what Gerard says about the Entities in MAG 111 (Family Business) “And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.” Using the color example again, technically all colors we see are just varying wavelengths of light but responding to someone asking “does this look red to you?” with “red, blue, purple… what’s the difference? They’re all the same” isn’t that helpful. If I were to put it another way, imagine trying to go through your life without using any units of measurement. Someone asks how far away a country is and you have to explain it to them without any standardized unit of measurement. It’s certainly possible for some but most people would find it even more obtuse, arbitrary, and unwieldy than even the equally made up standardized units of measurement like kilometers and miles.

However, these categories are not clean, they can be nebulous, and people may organize them differently. In MAG 167 (Curiosity) it is noted that a previous Archivist, Angus Stacey, tried to come up with his own categories: “Angus had been too keen to learn, too ambitious in his academic legacy. He had had grand plans to revise Smirke’s Fourteen, and, in doing so, burned through his resources, his luck, and ultimately all but one of his assistants.”

At the end of the day I think what Jon and TMA are saying is that yes the Entities are kind of incomprehensible and that very incomprehensibility means that the only way many people can process what they are and why they act in certain ways is by dividing them into categories. Jon also points out to Gerard that fears can vary depending on the culture and person and Gerard responds with “A lot of them, yeah, but others are deeper than that. And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen.” Which makes sense, most people don’t want to die or be stabbed. Gerard’s comment also makes it sound like other people might categorize the Entities differently but he also says “I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.” The Smirke’s 14 aren’t as specific as some people make them out to be and can actually be quite broad and sweeping categories.

So with that in mind, I think Smirke’s fears are a lot more helpful and generally applicable than people give them credit for. And I mean, Smirke was onto something since he does seem to be one of the people that came up with the Entities’ rituals in the first place. Upon hearing about an attempted ritual for The Dark he realized every Entity probably has a similar ritual. As he says in the statement of MAG 138 “So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a grand ritual of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the powers, so it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper.” Once again implying that ideas about The Dark and rituals for the Entities to react to possibly existed before Smirke and he was simply collecting / noting various patterns and similarities. He may simply have been the most recent or well known person to put these thoughts together but not necessarily the first. Even then, Smirke wasn’t completely right because while his theory about balance was technically right in the sense that you need a ritual to summon every Entity into the universe for one to work he seems to have tied each ritual too closely to a single Entity (which luckily caused them to fail until Jonah worked out the issue).

Smirke does ponder if he brought the Entities into existence when he says “Fourteen powers, with their opposites and their allies, each with an aim no more or less than manifestation. Apocalypse. Apotheosis. I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or – did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?” But I don’t think he’s the sole reason they exist and I’m more inclined to say that he developed “the means by which they can be known”. His categories allowed others to try to understand the Entities and what they want in a manner that was more digestible. In MAG 200 we see Jon walk through the birth of each of the Entities and interestingly The Web seems to have identified itself as being at least somewhat distinct from the other Entities even if it does identify the other Entities as parts of itself: “But there was one, the part that some would call the Spider, that had been given a gift beyond all its brethren. The minds that feared grew suspicious of their own schemes, of connections and consequences, and over time these suspicions became threads, then webs, then nerves that granted the Spider, the Mother-of-Puppets, the Hidden Machination, a mind of its own; to plot and plan and draw its own connections, its own conclusions. Wheels, within wheels within wheels… It would not, could not tell its other parts, for were they even able to understand such things, which they could not, to trust, to share in such a way ran counter to its very essence.”

We also know that the Entities used to be more harmonious but then began to clash and warp as more fears came into existence: “And as these tiny, strange minds grew and learned, they did something new. They began to take their thoughts, their instincts and their horrors, and they crystallised them. They gave them sound and form and shape to share them. And as they did the thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines. It bled and warped and multiplied, and could no longer see itself as once it did. It could never be whole again.” Funnily enough, this implies that language probably has a big part to play in the manifestation of the Entities but it seems like a general thing as opposed to Smirke singlehandedly fracturing a nigh primordial being with a checklist of vague categories. The invention of language created new ways to transmit and think about fear. Languages that we know probably also exist in the Protocol universe (such as English).

So how does one reconcile The Web distinguishing itself from other parts? Well, I would use Leitner’s example of a large body. In MAG 80 (The Librarian) Leitner says “Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?” Well, the thing about a body is you don’t have complete control over all parts of it. Your iris will automatically contract or relax when exposed to light, your body may have an allergic reaction to something that won’t harm it, your nails and hair will continue to grow so you must cut them, etc.. So The Web is still kind of an amorphous blob and a part of a greater whole but it’s a sentient blob? At least sentient in a way conventional humans can more easily understand.

This is all to say that I think Smirke’s categories are kind of less impactful on the Entities than people give credit for while also being more useful than people give them credit for. I’ve seen people wonder if the Entities blended together when they went through the gap in reality and while that’s possible, if we use Gerard’s color example, the Entities might be closer to wavelengths of light. So it might just be like shining a light through a hole. Sure the light might look like white light sometimes but at the end of the day all the colors of the rainbow are still in there somewhere. I think people get too hung up on Jon saying the categories are bogus while ignoring the times where he admits their merit or finds them convenient to use.

There’s always the chance that I could be wrong, I admit, but I don’t think people give Smirke’s categories enough credit. It’s possible that the people in this new universe use different categories or divide the Entities up differently but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that say The Desolation just no longer exists. Just like me switching from meters to feet as a unit of measurement doesn’t literally change distance. All I’ve done by doing that is just change my point of reference for what’s happening, and the distance is still the same.

Also, from a narrative perspective, while the categories CAN be obtuse and limit one’s understanding (while this might seem reductive to say) the fear categories are a major part of TMA’s identity and what help make it unique from a lot of horror. I’ve seen people who don’t like the Fears and wish the categories didn’t exist (and arguably they missed Jon’s point about arbitrary lines) but at the same time most horror I’ve come across doesn’t really have the various Entities like TMA does. I would go as far as saying that it helps set TMA apart from a lot of other stuff at the end of the day. But, like I said, who's to say that the people in the Protocol universe don’t have their own categories and dividing lines or things didn’t get shaken up at least a little.

However, I think some people are also getting too caught up on previously established manifestations of the Fears. It feels like some people have a long checklist of things like “fire, dirt, ocean, cameras, etc.” and just go through that list looking for things to checkmark. If something isn’t on that list they assume that it must be a new Fear or breaking all the known rules. But remember what Leitner says in MAG 80 when Jon asks “What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?” “You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in your mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?” It’s not so much as what the Entities manifest as but why. The Entities can manifest as seemingly just about anything as long as it generates their respective fear. The Vast often manifests as the sky and storms but The Spiral manifested as a storm to torment Michael Crew. Almost any Entity could manifest as needles or what have you in the right circumstances depending on what the focus is. It’s important to focus more on what the fears embody generally and not just tunnel vision on the physical manifestations. The Stranger is the fear of the unknown and mystery for example, not simply just the fear of clowns or circuses. In this way, reducing The Stranger to “the circus one” can be inaccurate despite the relation. The Desolation is the fear of loss and destruction, so while it can be fire it can just as easily hypothetically be a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or even a swarm of locusts destroying your crops. It could even be a bank draining all your assets.

That being said, the reason why I think Smirke’s 14 is still at least somewhat applicable is because none of the cases we have gotten have really been anything that Entities haven’t done or couldn’t do before. This is already long enough so I’m sorry that I can’t go through each of these in extreme detail but RedCanary seems Eye related, Arthur sounds like the Anglerfish, the case in episode 2 is one of the most Flesh statements I’ve ever heard, the case in episode 3 reeks of The Corruption, the case in episode 4 is music that can make people fight each other (probably The Slaughter), the case in “Personal Screening” seems like The Eye again, Needles is a bit unclear to me but considering someone tried to stab them The Slaughter wouldn’t be unlikely (but Enttiies like The Flesh are possible), the case in “Give and Take” sounds like a manifestation of The Stranger, episode 8’s case resembles The Lonely, Episode 9’s case sounds like either The Web or The Desolation, Mr. Bonzo sounds pretty in line for what we’ve seen in regards to The Stranger, whatever “deep” is calling out to Gordon in episode 11 sounds the most like The Buried (The Buried is even referred to as the “Forever Deep Below” in TMA which would relate it to “The Deep” Gordon is talking about. There’s an argument for The Vast too but considering all the graves and the desire to bury things in them I’m more inclined to assume Buried), and episode 12 is just Mr. Bonzo showing up. If you want my full thoughts or have any specific questions you can check out the respective articles here (TMP Quick Thoughts Archive).

There’s one Entity I haven’t mentioned though. That’s The Extinction. The Extinction is sort of confirmed to exist but it’s a bit unclear. In MAG 175 (Epoch) Jon says “Of course it was real – A-At least in the sense that – it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen, or – whether it was on its way to getting there, I – maybe. This sort of thing is always muddy.” Whether or not The Change allowed the Extinction to gain enough fear to fully emerge is still unclear. There’s an argument that The Extinction was possibly sent back to square one since it seemed like Jonah didn’t need to involve it in his ritual so it’s possible it didn’t emerge in time. But, like I said previously, a lot of the fears that started giving birth to The Extinction in the first place within the world of TMA probably still exist in Protocol.

Then you have to consider the possibility that other characters or monsters may have been dragged with the Entities to the Protocol universe. If something like the Anglerfish or any number of other beings tied to the Entities got sucked into the Protocol universe it would not be impossible for them to introduce the already existing categories to new people. Likewise, they might still have many similar alliances and biases, a being that identified itself as being a part of The Stranger might still tend to dislike The Eye.

As mundane and unsatisfying as my answer might seem, my reasoning basically boils down to “I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that would prove to me this isn’t Smirke’s 14 and The Extinction” and “All of the stuff we are seeing is stuff Smirke’s 14 did or could do to begin with.”

#tmagp #the magnus protocol #the magnus archives #tma #smirkes 14

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